Earthing up ghosts, Textile artwork and pickling workshop, 2025

Earthing Up Ghosts is a socially engaged artwork about grief, gardening, and folklore. It centres around a patchwork tablecloth printed with text and images, which also serves as a place setting for conversations about loss.

The work grew from Emily’s childhood spent on the family allotment, and later, caring for their Dad’s plants after his death. It speaks of the magical thinking of grief - a kind of pareidolia of plants, where loss takes root in the landscape. It echoes the cyclical life of the allotment; a place where ghosts are glimpsed, cultivated, and lost once again. The work also contemplates ecological grief, and how the soil might mourn our mis-perceived separation from nature.

To Emily, grief feels unfixable, always shifting, once held at arm’s length, now something they tend to gently, like a garden. All of this mirrors their experience as a queer and neurodivergent person, where binaries blur and compost into something new.

This work was created for ‘Who needs flowers when they’re dead’, an exihbition curated by Broken Grey Wires at The Williamson Art Gallery and Museum. As part of the exhibition, Emily will host a workshop around the artwork. They invite others to take part in the ritual of pickling, whilst facilitating conversations about living with loss. Pickling becomes a metaphor for grief; an attempt to preserve things beyond the growing season, while communal preparation acts as a softener for difficult conversations. The aim is to create a space where grief can be explored openly, nurturing grief literacy and a sense of community.

Please note: This workshop hasn’t yet happened, and I’m yet to make proper documentation of the artwork. The image above is a placehold  - but better documentation will follow! Thanks for understanding and taking the time to read :)