This project seeks to establish a strategy for commoning the formerly public, now private land around Epping Forest, creating a publicly owned landscape that centres community management and rights to the forest.

Following Stavros Stavidres’ work on the ‘commons’ and the act of commoning, my project uses commoning as a verb that describes a process through which space continues to change, as opposed to creating a public space managed and preserved by an authority.

Focusing on Chingford Golf Course, a private golf course managed by the City of London, this project proposes commoning as a means of rewilding and restoring land whilst still allowing for public access, and community and public determination of the land through a new management system that reinstates historical rights to the forest.

Recognising the history of lopping at Epping Forest, the project puts process, material and the utilisation of local resources at the heart of design decisions. Challenging traditional landscape drawing representation, this work explores using printmaking, collaborative drawing, and filmmaking as a means of representing negotiation, adaptation and self-determination within landscapes.