SUN PRINTS ON TARMAC

Essex, July 2025

During the workshop we gathered a small sample of plants growing in cracks and on verges on our route between the building where we work and the welfare office on the Wethersfield Asylum Centre site. These weeds, generally considered plants growing in a place where they are not wanted, were picked for the purposes of drawing, pressing, sun-printing and conversation. They included yarrow, hemlock, willowherb, chamomile…

Bringing these delicate stems from the site inside the space seemed to shift focus to the present environment, juxtaposing with the internal geographies the men carry with them.

Conversations organically emerged at The Community Table around the healing properties of plants: ‘this plant is magic’, a man from Iran exclaimed while holding a poppy seed head.

A young man from Gaza sat with us to draw the Palestinian flag large on the blackboard tablecloth with the urgent words ‘free free Palestine’. He also told us that the olive tree, watermelon, poppy and faqqua are symbols of his precious country.

A man from Sudan sat at the table, intently producing a stunning image of a favourite remembered landscape. His friend, also from Sudan, took particular interest in the cyanotype process, selecting delicately textured feather and flower to compose a print, fascinated by the need to consider the cloud cover and quality of sunlight to get the correct exposure. He explained the process to a group of Palestinian men who were interested to try out this early photographic process.

We mused over the different uses of the term ‘blueprint’: in psychology referring to our deeply ingrained thoughts, feelings and actions inherited from our ancestors; in architecture, to site drawings used for construction. We thought about the legacy of the original Wethersfield site plan designed as a military airbase: slowly reappropriated for a different group of men. We thought of the blueprint of the onsite rose garden, now almost swallowed by weeds, and the continual struggle of order over nature, young trees breaking through tarmac, growing towards the sun.

Words by Katie Miller, Thomas Etheridge, & Bobby Lloyd.