University of Victoria history professor Elizabeth Vibert has added a new designation to her resume – that of film producer – but she gives the real accolades to the subjects of The Thinking Garden.
“The Thinking Garden came from the women themselves who founded the garden in 1992 when there was a serious drought across southern Africa,” says Vibert, whose academic work takes her to South Africa’s Hleketani Community Garden.
Faced with food shortages, a group of women asked a local chief for land for a new idea – a community garden to grow food for their families. It was “a group of women coming together to pool their resources and their labour for the greater community,” Vibert says.
In 2017, the women’s vegetable farm celebrates its 25th year.
“Over the years it has achieved so much,” Vibert says.
In working with the women through her research visits, they asked whether she would make a movie about their experience.
“The question really planted the seed because I find the farm so incredibly inspiring and the women so committed and hard-working,” Vibert says.
Joining Vibert in the storytelling was Metis director Christine Welsh, whose films have been described as “gentle conversations about not so gentle things.”
As writer and director, Welsh’s films explore hidden histories – her own (Women in the Shadows) and that of others (Kuper Island: Return to the Healing Circle). Finding Dawn was an early call to action on the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada, while Keepers of the Fire celebrates the role of Indigenous women in keeping their cultures alive and fighting for human rights.
Vibert and Welsh recently screened The Thinking Garden in Toronto and Halifax. The film was an official selection of the Vancouver International Women in Film Festival, and the Vancouver South African Film Festival, with other festival applications pending. The film will also be screened at the Berkshire Conference on Women’s and Gender History in New York this June.
“It’s been really gratifying to first of all do what the women wanted, which was bring their story to film,” Vibert says. ”
She also took the film to the women themselves. “That was amazing,” she says.
One of the women, Rosina Masangu, pictured above, was particularly moved by the experience.
“She sat very quiet at the end of the film ... I thought something was bothering her. She shook her head and said, ‘This is like a miracle. I never thought I’d see something like this for our farm.’ It was very powerful.”
The 35-minute film, in the xiTsonga language with English subtitles, launches locally at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 1 in UVIc’s David Lam Auditorium, Maclaurin A144.
While the story is rooted in South Africa, its message reaches much farther afield.
UVic ethnobotonist Nancy Turner watched an advanced screening of The Thinking Garden.
“The remarkable story of this garden and these women who brought it to life will be an inspiration for countless others,” she says.
In September 2015, local gardeners supported the Hleketani Community Garden through the Urban Food-Garden Tour of home gardens in Oak Bay, Victoria, Saanich and Esquimalt. The event supported sustainable farming locally with Haliburton Community Farm, with the balance of money going to Hleketani Community Garden.
A second garden tour is planned for Sunday, Sept. 9. Watch for more information through the spring and summer.
“This is very much grassroots,” Vibert says of the women and their Thinking Garden. “(It) also has all sorts of community values and social values beyond food and nutrition.”
When & where
• See The Thinking Garden at 7 p.m. March 1 at UVic’s David Lam Auditorium, Maclaurin A144
Learn more:
• facebook.com/sathinkinggarden
• facebook.com/victoriaurbanfoodgardens