This project explores the migration of ingredients as a parallel to the migration of people — a journey marked by memory, adaptation, and survival. Inspired by John Akomfrah’s A Space of Empathy, the design investigates how Chinese immigrant communities have quietly reshaped Britain’s culinary and agricultural landscapes through the plants they carried with them.Set along the historic route between Liverpool’s Lime Street Station and Chinatown — the gateway through which many early Chinese immigrants first arrived in Europe — the project integrates an urban farm, a shared kitchen for adults, and a teaching kitchen for children. Together, these spaces cultivate crops such as perilla, coriander, water spinach, and bean sprouts, connecting generations through flavor and food practice.More than a farming initiative, this project is a cultural act — one that supplies fresh produce to local Chinese restaurants and supermarkets, reactivates a once-vibrant district, and invites new conversations about belonging, identity, and the overlooked contributions of immigrant communities. Through this renewed landscape, a space of empathy emerges: rooted in soil, shaped by hands, and sustained by shared heritage.
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