Earlier this year, in collaboration with the School of Arts at University of Bristol, I registered Pedestrian Space as an organization where Master’s of Film and TV students can do their Industrial Placement with.
I am not a filmmaker myself (but a photographer) and as a media advocate, I am always interested in how I can collaborate with students and professionals in a range of professional visual arts disciplines to produce material on issues at the heart of Pedestrian Space’s work.
Yujie NI is one of the students who applied to be placed with Pedestrian Space, choosing one of two tracks I offered: community and urban agriculture focus (the other track being sustainable mobility).
I love mentoring and also watching the development and journey of students through their placement.
Yujie has been making great progress with her documentary research and networking. Last month (June 2024) she participated as a volunteer in the Bristol Get Growing Trail and later wrote me with an update to her placement- that she would spend much of the remainder of the placement volunteering at two community gardens where she would also be able to record a lot of footage and do interviews.
During one of our June meeting check-in’s, she enthusiastically shared with me about her first Bristol-based garden volunteer experience.
She picked potatoes, which she found really interesting, learned how to harvest and grow lettuce, planted sunflower and now looks forward to picking blueberries and raspberries.
The community garden is all organic which is also aligned with Yujie’s own long-time mission of promoting organic food (which she worked on during her Bachelor’s in China).
She shared that later that evening she cooked a traditional Chinese dish with her friends using potatoes she had picked that day. Her friends all thought it was really great and expressed wanting to go with her next time to help.
This month we published her very first community gardening video, featuring scenes from her filming and volunteer work at Bristol-based Easton Community Gardens.
ENJOY THE SHORT VIDEO BELOW!
Below, Yujie and I watch her first produced video on community garden in Bristol at one of our weekly check-in’s. Congratulations Yujie!!!
-Annika, Founder at Pedestrian Space
