Polly Brannan + Aaron McKay

4 July 2025
6pm – 8pm
Cliftonville Community Centre

A pop-up poster-making and planting workshop at the Mobile Growing Unit, led by OSE’s Artistic Director Polly Brannan and Community Gardener Aaron McKay as part of OSE’s 2024-26 Civic Programme Home is where the garden is. 

The workshop took place with We Stand Together – The EU Club, a welcoming space for local young people and families to connect, create and have fun at Cliftonville Community Centre.

With Aaron, participants learnt how to take plant cuttings and shared gardening knowledge. They planted their cuttings in pots that they decorated with abstract images inspired by organic forms.

With Polly, participants were invited to make posters responding to the questions:

What is a home? What does it mean to have roots? What connects you to home? What does a garden mean to you? Who/what is a garden for? How are you connected to plants?

Typography used in the posters was co-designed by Despacito Art School with Polly and OSE’s in-house graphic designer George Harding, who also designed the base poster motif, in response to Despacito’s designs.

The posters were exhibited as part of Despacito Art School’s 2025 Summer Exhibition Home is where the garden is at Roland Ross gallery on Northdown Road in Cliftonville.

Aaron McKay is a gardener and Forest School teacher based in Ramsgate, Kent, with a specialism in child-led and outdoor learning. Aaron oversees OSE’s allotment planters at Ethel-Athel Alleway Garden. He has previously worked with grassroots, neurodivergent play charity See Me Play at The Garden Gate Project, and with Open School East’s Despacito Art School as part of the programme cycle Home is where the garden is.

This Civic Programme event is part of OSE’s two-year thematic cycle Home is where the garden is – find more events: https://openschooleast.org/home-is-civic