The Ruderal Garden
By Garden Loops
Exhibition garden in process
Parking lot
The Ruderal Garden is a semi-wild, semi-cultivated landscape. It’s an artistic research project exploring the potential of ruderal plants – often seen as undesirable weeds – in strengthening ecosystems and decontaminating polluted cityscapes.
The Ruderal Garden is run by Garden Loops – an art and architecture collective consisting of Alexandra Papademetriou, Mercè Torres, Natalie Blom and Poppy Bell in collaboration with Färgfabriken.
On site
Ruderal plants inhabit environments usually considered inhospitable to human eyes – cracks in sidewalks, industrial sites, waste disposal areas – but are in fact rich and diverse ecosystems. In The Ruderal Garden, we explore the idea of the gardener as a multispecies actor (human, animal or plant) who cares for the Garden.
The project takes place at Färgfabriken through an exhibition garden which embeds Garden Loop’s ideas and research on ruderal landscapes in public space. The garden was built as a pilot project in 2024 and will evolve over the next two years. This garden is open to the public and aims to engage and educate about ruderal landscapes.
Program
Upcoming
26 October 2025
Workshop: Fall in the ruderal garden.
Past
2 October 2024
Lecture, workshop and pop-up gallery
16.00 Opening of the Collective Ruderal Gallery and guided tours of the Ruderal Garden
16.30 Lecture on urban plants with Yannick Woudstra – Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant sciences at Stockholm University.
17.00 Workshop – The Ruderal Hyper Local Flora
Ruderal Collective Gallery
Temporary photo exhibition in the Ruderal Garden where Garden Loops asked people to submit photos of their local ruderal gardens through an open call.
Workshop – Ruderal Hyper Local Flora
A workshop where visitors are invited to a guided tour through the Ruderal Garden and an introduction to the ongoing work with The Hyper Local Flora Book. Participants will be invited contribute to the flora by documenting a plant (or Ruderal element) on Lövholmen.
13 June 2024
Opening program
12.30 Lemonade
12.45 Ant-walk with Carmela Omil
13.00 Workshop making habitats for insects
14.00–17.00 Hangout in the Ruderal Garden
Purpose
The Ruderal Garden is designed as a multifaceted project addressing multiple interconnected concerns. On a local level, it works towards remediating the soil and revitalising the natural habitat around Färgfabriken. In doing this work collectively, we aim to build a community around this garden; while also fostering engagement with environmental issues, highlighting the inherent value in something that is often ignored.
We are also concerned by the coming and ongoing climate crisis and see this project as a way of practising more-than-human care. We believe a multispecies approach to living, architecture, planning, gardening, and moving through the world is important. We want other people to also be open to a multispecies approach and see this project as a way of signposting.
We are already involved in processes of open learning – we are interested in our landscapes and ecologies and want to experiment in a hands-on way. This project sits within the bases of knowledge we hold as artists and practitioners. It is a way to further develop our methodology and expand the ideas our practice engages with.
– Garden Loops
