A Garden of Our Own, 2025
Maddie Alexander + Sacha Stephan
Halifax Mural Fest, Halifax NS
15 ft x 8 ft, Wheatpaste and Acrylic Paint.
Bringing together different plant life that are known to support herbal approaches to HRT, A Garden of Our Own reflects the ways in which trans folks can and will thrive through community care, and carving out our own ways of survival. This work features different herbs and plant life that can support herbal HRT, accompanied by prints which share details of how to grow, nurture, and harvest each plant to support hormonal shifts. The wheatpasted prints are designed to naturally deteriorate over time, while the painted mural remains consistent throughout the elements. This juxtaposition mirrors the tensions between threats of our rights to access medical gender affirming care being gatekeeped and eradicated; with the known fact that trans people have always existed, and will always find a way.
The research for this project was supported by some texts available online and for free, we thank these researchers for their care and thoughtfulness.
Holistic Health for Transgender & Gender Variant Folks, Dori Midnight
(link: https://www.berkeleyherbalcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Midnight_D_Transgender_Care.pdf)
Transgender herb garden : An MtF guide to disconnecting one's self from big pharma, FlyingOtter
(link: https://digitalcollections.library.miami.edu/digital/collection/zines/id/1185)