en interviews Juliet Sargeant, designer of the garden which references William Wilberforce and slavery today
en: Big congratulations on winning gold for your slavery garden. How were you inspired to the design? Did it come from a single idea or did it evolve with input from others?
JS: Having started off knowing nothing about modern slavery at the beginning of this project, I was made aware of its presence in London (and every major city in the UK) by listening to Kevin Hyland, the new UK Anti-Slavery Commissioner. He said that as a serving police officer he participated in raids in the fashionable and wealthy Chelsea area of London. It is here that the world-famous Chelsea Flower Show is staged every year, so I took myself off to Chelsea for inspiration.
It soon came when I saw a man delivering a heavy parcel to one of the big houses. The maid emerged from the basement, but instead of unlocking the gate, she and the deliveryman battled to pass the large box over the top of the iron railings. It just struck me as strange that she did not seem to have a key to the gate and that set me thinking about how we have no idea of what is going on behind the closed doors of our own neighbourhoods.
