Joy , TheProject.

 The mission of this garden is to create a space for stories from the soil to live.

  More than a community garden not exactly a farm,  The Joy Project is a living archive of african atlantic agriculture and foodways in Detroit’s North End.This space invites guests, family ,teachers and community to open themselves to remember indigenous practices, taste rarely grown produce and hear stories about Black and Brown peoples’ current and historical relationship to the soil.

Using their separate yet extremely related fields in food Josmine and Gabrielle  will work together to bring Joy and study to engage with ourselves and the community in conversation of history and heritage through food, embracing and acknowledging what we eat as our legacy and heritage

Joy, TheProject; a mixed use space open daily to visitors , volunteers and community members. A museum of plants ready to engage you with their stories. We offer an inviting location with low fencing , trellis vertical gardening, wide accessible pathways , tall raised beds and a 9 ft wide roadway.  signage with pictures and raised word characters readable to all ages and abilities,  working with the environment and local community where we already live and work to continue to add value and love to our neighborhood here in the North End. A seed library, sensory garden, educational center and healing space, The Joy Project is based on 4 major pillars

(4) Major Pillars

Restoration

Here we explore a mix of traditional and more modern techniques of growing and engaging with the soil in our perennial circle. We collaborate choosing a variety of herbs and Flowers of medicinal value arranged to support this space of healing and restoration. The center of this circle features a paved patio area for community activities that invite nature into healing practices that restore the balance of the mind, body and spirit. 

Remembering

A section of raised beds, curated by Josmine, featuring plants that have been integral and influential in the diasporic culinary cultural experience, think: okra, watermelon and cotton. This heritage section offers visitors an opportunity to commune with our plant ancestors and share their stories along with our own as we remember 

Reconciliation

This section of garden has 50 ft long in-ground Row beds, a mixing of perennial, yearly annuals , with seasonal highlights and experiments Curated by Gabrielle Knox.

Our land is a Museum. In all sections reflected in the garden you will find plants that speak to the very personal relationships of plants to cultural foodways and tradition.  utilizing some no-till techniques adding organic materials and cover crops .  

Its important as we Steward this land, to acknowledge how the plants we display have been used in the oppression of humans and even today for some plants is a relationship of manipulation and exploitation. Cared for with the intention of reparations and atonement we remember AND we Reconcile. Here, giving more life to the conversation and more freedom to the plants, from this land, whose seeds we save and store.    

Recognition

Though The Joy Project centers the African Atlantic experience we are ever aware that our experience here is not happening in a vacuum. The entry to the farm will be marked with an altar/offering/demo garden displaying the 3 sisters method of Indigenous agricultural practices recognizing the original and true stewards of this land. The 3 sisters garden will serve as a living land acknowledgment and a celebration of the Anishinaabe.