`logs`
here, we plan to document some of the philosophy, culture, and projects that have come out of [orchard].
we're looking for submissions for our logs! submit your rambles here.
we hope that these logs can serve as a record of the community and the work that we do, and invite musings to be added here over time.
planting an [orchard] - autumn/winter 2024
May 4th, 2025 malaika aiyar
This idea of passion project collectives started in Waterloo with Socratica, and in 2022, our friend Euan at Cambridge started [scale down]. Later, Xi started [craft] in London, and Grace started [orchard] in Oxford which ran just for the winter of '23.
It reached me in the summer of '24, when Xi hosted a Symposium, a showcase of projects from these 'nodes' around the UK. The energy of making. Space to fail. People sharing things they were truly passionate about. Simply put, I really wanted this in Oxford.
And lucky for me, Grace was looking for co-hosts: she found me and Lydia and we wanted to revive [orchard]. The rest of summer was spent exchanging thousands of words on a group chat. So many things to iron out, logistics, details, where do you even find these people? Contrary to 'Sunday morning coworking', a format popular at other nodes (the term for a single project group), we dreamt of a cosy evening gathering: people gathered on the floor under warm lamps, ideas flowing freely, soft guitar playing in the background, drinking green tea-- this is the vision we worked towards initially.
Sarah has been supporting [orchard] since the start. She has been my printmaking teacher and close friend for the last year and a bit. Sarah took a chance on [orchard] by letting us use her art studio every Tuesday evening for [orchard]. It's a wonderfully cluttered, inherently creative, experimental space. You look up at a painted wooden ceiling, which dates to the early 17th century. And as you look around, the walls are full with art made by students recently: paintings, posters, prints, photographs, text, sculptures. The best part is the teapot: it's absolutely massive, and it would become an [orchard] staple, though we didn't know this at the beginning.
The day of the first session came soon. Each of us invited a few friends and prayed they would come; I bought a small packet of sencha from the Covered Market and a few small snacks from my favourite stores in Jericho.
And… 16 people came to the first session! Woah… what? The energy was incredible: people brought their friends, conversations afterwards went until 4am because we were buzzing from drinking way too much sencha.
Grace, Lydia and I also chatted afterwards. We felt so lucky and wanted to keep this going. We wondered what it would be like to scale from this to having 50 attendees weekly… the path there was unclear. And we were left with so many things to fix: we needed to buy way more snacks (some people thought it was going to be dinner), improve the range of projects, not stay up until 4am thinking about things and setting up new luma links.
The weeks went by very quickly. I think photos tell the story better.
Happy faces at our first [orchard] session
We loved our staircase photos (maybe we should bring that back)
We started taking photos on Agniv's old camera… nice!
It was really chatty!
Haven't nailed the group photo thing yet
We picked up two more hosts, Faye & Nick
We launched [orchard] day at common ground, hosted by me, Faye, Nick mainly, to be able to have more people coming to [orchard] sessions each week.
In December 2024, we came together in London with the other nodes in the UK for an event we call [ensemble]. It's like a recurring version of the summer Symposium that inspired us at the beginning. People from the community share their projects and skills either through demos or by leading spontaneous workshops.
I am writing this in the middle of February 2025. That '50 attendees weekly' goal? I think we actually reached it this term. All this is so much more than we ever dreamt of when we sat down to think about [orchard] in summer. I have a lot of dreams for the next year: more [ensemble], collaborative favour auction, workshops, a podcast, new types of tea, a third weekly session, music sessions, garden party, maybe an Oxford symposium… come to [orchard] to find out.
[first log]
Feb 4th, 2024 agniv sarkar
This log is a little overdue.
It's the first real log, and so I'll keep it short. The art room has guitars now (and people willing to play them!) which makes it even homier.
Hosts are on rotation now so it feels a lot more chill. It's a 'mega-moment,' where it's really become self-actualizing. There are more hosts now and more participants. (It's a really weird problem to have where we don't actually have enough chairs in all the rooms). We're all transitioning to becoming hosts of the space.
At the end of sessions, we've transitioned from asking everyone to tell us an update, because there are so many people (and the last thing we want is for mostly university students to go to bed late on a weeknight), and instead having people offer themselves. There were some really chill ones, like a dnd character, research on aids program, website development, multiple lino prints, and physics notes.
This is nighttime. The lights are dim and there is soft guitar playing. On the walk back home it feels light (there are stars out) and we talk about it.
Soon it is daytime.
I headed there early because, well, I always love a cafe (specifically Common Ground!) in the morning. We run into the same problem (so many people!). My glasses always fog up from the humidity of people working and laughing so I have to place them on my head and squint. I get the barista's special (a mix of EVERYTHING, hot chocolate, chai, and espresso all in one) and head to the table with the sign "[orchard] reserved."
A family came up and they sat for a few minutes (I came really early) while I figured stuff out. Then the people start rolling in. And they don't stop. There's a digital artist, a story writer, a math reader, a speed artist, an anatomy artist, multiple poets, and many a beverage enjoyer.
We're really lucky to have spaces. I'm not an analytic philosopher here, so I won't bog down with details. There's color here, there's people here, there's laughter and grace and freedom and peace.
It feels good.
If you're interested in coming, please check out our luma for future events!