Tooting Community Garden

A wooden planter hand-painted with pink flowers, holding three striped painted birdhouses, made in workshops for Tooting Community Garden

Hand-painted birdhouses and planters that brought South Asian colour and culture into Tooting Community Garden

Roopa Basu supporting two participants as they paint wooden planters at Mushkil Aasaan

For South Asian Heritage Month 2025, Mushkil Aasaan and the Ethnicity Mental Health Improvement Project (EMHIP) commissioned me to lead a series of creative workshops, as part of Wandsworth’s London Borough of Culture programme. Together, participants decorated wooden birdhouses and planters to bring colour and culture into Tooting Community Garden.

I helped EMHIP write the South Asian Heritage Month grant application that funded the project, and it was the first project of its kind for the group.

The Story

The workshops set out to honour South Asian traditions through art and storytelling, and to give the community a shared way of making their mark on a green space close to home.

Seeing the finished birdhouses and planters out in the garden, filled with flowers, was a lovely moment for everyone involved.

Brightly painted wooden birdhouses in orange, blue and green, decorated with flowers and stripes
Creative Process

Each session was relaxed and hands-on. I set out a table full of paints, brushes and pattern ideas, and brought a few finished pieces to spark ideas. Most people quickly went their own way: some worked in fine, careful detail, others painted bold stripes and blocks of colour.

Across three to four workshops, around 15 to 25 people took part. The finished pieces were celebrated at Tooting Community Garden on 13 August 2025, then planted up and placed around the garden.

  • Women working together around long tables during a creative workshop at Mushkil Aasaan
  • Participants painting a wooden planter with bright patterns at the workshop
  • Participants painting small wooden birdhouses at a table full of paints
  • A hand adding painted patterns to a wooden planter
  • An orange planter being painted with colourful stripes during the workshop
  • Finished hand-painted planters filled with colourful birdhouses
  • A participant painting a large wooden planter with swirling patterns
  • Roopa Basu at the celebration day in Tooting Community Garden, with painted birdhouses on the table
  • Planting roses into a hand-painted planter in Tooting Community Garden
  • Four hand-painted wooden planters arranged on garden steps in Tooting Community Garden
  • A row of hand-painted wooden planters with flowers along a brick garden wall
  • Five orange planters painted with bright South Asian-inspired patterns, stacked on a rack in the garden
My Role

I helped write the funding application, designed the workshop activity and led every session, supported by Shatha, Matilda and Taiwo. My role was to give everyone a confident starting point, then leave room for each person’s own colours and patterns.

Community Impact
  • Three to four workshops, with around 15 to 25 people taking part.
  • The group’s first creative heritage project of this kind.
  • Hand-painted birdhouses and planters brought colour and culture into Tooting Community Garden.
  • Part of South Asian Heritage Month and Wandsworth’s London Borough of Culture 2025.
Partners & Credits
  • Artistic direction and facilitation: Roopa Basu
  • Commissioned by: Mushkil Aasaan and EMHIP (Ethnicity Mental Health Improvement Project)
  • Funding: South Asian Heritage Month grant, secured by EMHIP (application co-written with Roopa Basu)
  • With special thanks to: Shatha, liaison between EMHIP and Mushkil Aasaan, without whom this project wouldn’t have happened
  • Workshop support: Shatha, Matilda and Taiwo Durodola
  • Photography: Taiwo Durodola
  • Celebration day: Tooting Community Garden

All photographs are shared with the express permission of the people pictured.