Money Trees, Cyber Gardens and Ecological Citizens

What if your phone could help you care for the trees on your street, not just scroll past them

In this live conversation – recorded in collaboration with Open Area at Camley Street Nature Park in October 2025 – artist Rachy McEwan and technologist, guerrilla gardener and nature rights campaigner Kalpana Arias explore how art, code and community action can work together to protect and restore urban nature.

From felled sycamores behind a London flat to cyber gardens and Tamagotchi-style tree sensors, they ask how we can stop seeing ourselves as just consumers online and start acting as ecological citizens – in our cities, on our streets and inside our digital worlds.

In this episode

We talk about:

Money Trees – how three 100-year old sycamores inspired a multi-year art project turning threatened trees into 3D models and digital assets that fund real-world care

How London currently “values” trees – and why some are worth £1.6m while others are valued at nothing

Using photogrammetry, GIS mapping and blockchain to give community trees visibility and protection

Kalpana’s journey from regenerative agriculture and farmers’ rights to guerrilla gardening and civic tech in London

nowadays and Glitch – a cyber gardening tool that helps people map “cyber gardens”, learn green skills and connect to local species and spaces

The idea of environmental generational amnesia – and why every new generation accepts a more degraded “normal” for nature

Seeing technology as part of our ecology, not the enemy – “naturalising the machine” in the age of the symbiocene

Tree Goji – hacking Tamagotchis and soil sensors so you “look after” a digital pet and a real tree at the same time

Data, rights and forests – what it means to talk about data rights for nature as more trees and habitats are scanned and digitised

Multisensory worlds – why smell, touch and sound matter just as much as screens in how we connect with nature

How projects like Money Trees and Glitch can support children and young people, bridging gaming culture, tech and hands-on time outdoors

About our guests

Rachy McEwan
Rachy is a London-based interdisciplinary artist whose work spans painting, scent, fungi, mycelium sculptures and digital worlds. Her long-term project Money Trees uses 3D scanning, animation and community participation to record threatened trees in London, increase their perceived value and channel resources into their care and protection.

Kalpana Arias
Kalpana is a guerrilla gardener, technologist and nature rights campaigner, and a trustee of London National Park City. Through her social enterprise nowadays, she creates tools and platforms that decentralise technology and put it back in the hands of communities – including Glitch, a cyber gardening tool that helps people learn green skills, map local ecologies and act as ecological citizens.

Links

Open Area

Money Trees – Rachy’s project mapping and modelling London’s threatened trees

Glitch – cyber gardening tool developed by nowadays

Camley Street Nature Park – the urban nature reserve where this conversation was filmed

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