OmVed Gardens: A Living, Breathing Celebration of Food, Ecology, and Culture

Tucked away behind Townsend Yard in Highgate, north London, sits a quietly radical oasis – OmVed Gardens. Newly reopened after a two-year transformation, this urban sanctuary is more than just a garden. It’s a Gesamtkunstwerk – a total work of art – where food, ecology, creativity, learning, architecture, and landscaping intertwine. The result is a space that invites you to walk slower, breathe deeper, and think harder about how we live – with nature, and with each other.

The landscape-led project, designed by Paul Gazerwitz of Studio Gazerwitz Landscape Architects, features a ‘hilltop village’ of buildings conceived by Piers Smerin of Smerin Architects – a carefully composed set of structures nestled into the site, blurring the boundary between built form and cultivated ground.

Originally reimagined in 2017 from a former garden centre, OmVed has now entered a new chapter. After a period of careful reinvention, it’s open to the public every weekend with a year-round programme of exhibitions, workshops, and events. Over the course of a day-long visit, filled with guided tours, shared food, and a quietly affecting exhibition, it was clear: this isn’t just a place to visit. It’s a growing experiment in how we might live differently.

Growing Resilience: A Programme Rooted in Practice

OmVed Gardens is shaped by a multitude of voices and visions, rather than one central figure. Its heart might be difficult to pin down. Is it the soil? The seed? The kitchen? The three thematic strands that guide the programme – Wild Learning, Healthy Habits, and Nature-led Creativity – reflect its layered, living ethos. Workshops led by the OmVed team, alongside herbalists, artists, and urban growers, range from composting and fermentation to cooking, meditation, and foraging. The programme is shaped with intent: food, ecology, art, and education don’t sit in silos, but cross-pollinate, much like the polyculture beds that nourish both people and the planet.

Operating as a Community Interest Company (CIC), OmVed generates funds through a hybrid model of public programming and private events. “All income is used to further benefit the many communities OmVed Gardens serves,” the team explains. “We aim to break even where possible, while remaining as accessible as we can.” The transformation has been privately funded, though exactly how much remains undisclosed. The team also continues to seek external funding to support long-term resilience.

In the words of curator Sol Polo, the work here is about “growing resilience” – both literally, in the soil, and metaphorically, in our collective capacity to adapt and care. The goal isn’t eco-perfection. “That’s unsustainable,” one team member noted. Instead, OmVed is an ongoing practice: rooted, responsive, and regenerative.

Into the Seeds of Time: Vivienne Schadinsky’s Residency

“Which seed will grow, and which won’t?” artist Vivienne Schadinsky asks. “And what does that say about what we choose to invest in?”

The question echoes Banquo’s line in Macbeth, when he wonders if anyone can “look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not.” That image of seeds as symbols of potential, future, and uncertainty runs through every part of Schadinsky’s work.

Into the Seeds of Time, her solo exhibition running from 31 May to 3 August 2025, unfolds across OmVed’s newest spaces: the Greenhouse, the Seed Library, the Barn and the Kitchen. Through films, sculptures and Japanese ink paintings, Schadinsky traces the journey of beans from seed to plate. The work is inspired by Japan’s traditional calendar of 72 microseasons – a system that divides the year into small, five-day segments, each one marking a subtle shift in the natural world, like “frogs start singing” or “barley ripens.” It’s an invitation to slow down and really notice the rhythms of change. (At the time of writing, we’re in the “praying mantises hatch” season.)

Vivienne's paintings draw on the Japanese art of sumi-e, using handmade ink from pine resin and brushstrokes that follow the exact motion of the hand. Through this meditative process, Vivienne explores the elemental relationship between beans and the forces that sustain life – soil, air, water, and fire – and their vital role in both planetary and human health.

The exhibition design by Maurizio Mucciola, reflects the same ethos of responsiveness and reuse. Modular display screens made from recycled wood salvaged from the site’s previous greenhouse frame the work, while fabric screens printed with Vivienne’s ink drawings move gently with the breeze – part architecture, part choreography.

Installation view of Into the Seeds of Time by Vivienne Schadinsky, showing the Barn and fabric screens. Exhibition design by Maurizio Mucciola. Photograph © Maurizio Mucciola.

Vivienne’s year-long residency at OmVed was deeply site-specific. She collaborated with scientists, observed germination cycles, and used natural materials like pine resin ink to create her delicate paintings. Beans, she notes, are often the first plants to grow back after fire, restoring the land. At OmVed, they now grow in the kitchen beds, feature on the menu, and anchor this reflective, quietly radical show.

Seeds, Soil, and Storytelling

Perhaps the most quietly revolutionary corner of OmVed is the Seed Library. Coordinated by Daniel Connor, it’s a space where seeds are not just stored, but shared. Saved from the garden, catalogued, and redistributed, seeds here are treated as living memory – not as static specimens.

The team is part of wider, global conversations around seed sovereignty and rematriation – the process of returning culturally significant seeds to their communities of origin. This isn’t just about biodiversity; it’s about justice, healing, and repair. Seeds, in this context, become more than biology – they’re ancestral stories, cultural ties, and acts of resistance. “It’s about movement,” one team member said. “Seeds shouldn’t sit still. Like people, they’re meant to move, adapt and grow.”

Urban Growing

OmVed is as much a working landscape as it is a place of reflection. The growing spaces are carefully designed, but not overly polished – functioning as part demonstration garden, part living system. Urban growing here is led by Vicky Chown, alongside an education team that runs courses for all ages. The approach is practical, observational, and always evolving.

Everything on site has its role. Expect:

• A meadow garden alive with pollinators and butterflies

• Polyculture kitchen beds growing seasonal vegetables and herbs

• Ponds that support aquatic biodiversity and collect rainwater across the sloped site

• A Greenhouse – a striking, double-height space maximising passive solar gain and natural ventilation

• A rooftop garden above the new kitchen

• The Pavilion, repurposed from OmVed’s Chelsea Flower Show installation

• The Seed Library, where science meets storytelling

• The OmVed Café & Kitchen, open on weekends (Saturdays & Sundays, 10.30am – 4pm, no reservations), serving seasonal, ‘mostly’ plant-based food inspired by what’s growing in the garden – everything, in fact, is plant-based except the salt

• A composting system in development, with plans to process organic waste from local households and businesses to help build healthy, living soil.

Looking Forward

OmVed’s calendar of events reflects its expansive yet grounded vision. From The Regenerative Garden (a five-part growing course) to The Conscious Kitchen (on sustainable, low-waste cookery), to nature journaling workshops with artist Shilpa Agashe, the offerings combine practice with reflection, accessibility with depth.

Residencies, while currently in a state of transition, remain a core strand of the garden’s creative life. Though OmVed has paused its usual annual residency rhythm due to recent building works, the team plans to continue residencies in future, with updated structures and a renewed focus on community engagement. Details will be announced in due course.

OmVed is also rooted in broader movements for food justice and ecological repair, with partnerships across urban food networks including GROW (We are Grow). From compost to policy, every thread is connected.

Final Thoughts

A visit to OmVed Gardens is a breath of fresh air – in every sense. This isn’t just about sustainability; it’s about attunement. It’s about relationships. The seed to the soil. The cook to the harvest. The artist to the natural world.

If you’ve grown weary of exhibitions that leave you cold, or green spaces that feel manicured rather than meaningful, come here. Spend the day. Wander the meadow. Join a workshop. Taste what’s growing. Let the wind move through the exhibition’s fabric walls – and perhaps spill a few beans of your own. Because sometimes, the most radical thing we can do is slow down, and plant something real.

OmVed Gardens, Highgate, London
Open to the public: Saturdays & Sundays
☕ Café open weekends – no reservations
Vivienne Schadinsky: Into the Seeds of Time
31 May – 3 August 2025
Cost: £6
Workshops, supper clubs, Friday night lates and more. Visit the OmVed Gardens website for the full programme.

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