^{AUTUMN 2022 ︎︎︎ The church who meet on the allotment}

^{‘Gather Collective’ is a Pioneer church that tends a community garden on the allotment down the road from where they meet in Eastbourne. We were commissioned by the Pioneer Network to tell their story as part of a larger film series.}

In October 2022 we visited Gather Collective, a church in Eastbourne, whose gatherings centre around hospitality and gardening. The church meets on seven allotment plots, that are arranged not just for growing, but also gathering as a community – trees, flowers and vegetable patches surround the central gathering space; a kitchen cabin and large dining tables. The garden grows to the side of a well-trodden public footpath. 

Each day the gate is left wide open for people to wander in. When we arrived, bowls of kale and squash soup were already being passed around long banquet tables in the polytunnel - a meal grown and prepared, from seed to stomach, without ever leaving the garden.

Words by Joshua Jones