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<\/strong><\/p>\nA total of 62 items were buried in the capsule. Among the items are letters written by staff to the future, a jar of honey produced by the University\u2019s beekeeping team at Sonning Farm and recipes from University chefs and colleagues.<\/p>\n
Also in the capsule are postcards by schoolchildren at New Christ Church Primary School in Reading. These feature drawings and messages with creative ideas of future food systems.<\/p>\n
Rosy Scholes, a PhD researcher in sustainable agriculture at Reading, who co-led the project, said: \u201cIt has been a joy to be a part of this project, co-creating a vision with our local community on what we want the future of food and farming to look like. By burying this time capsule, we’re sending a small message to the future, not just about what we know today, but about the futures we hoped for, the questions we were asking, and the world we are trying to leave behind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Phillippa Heath, Head of Learning and Engagement in the University\u2019s Museums and Special Collections, said: \u201cFor The MERL, being involved in this project was incredibly exciting. It allowed us to explore farming practices past and present through the museum collections and to invite our communities to contemplate what farming might look like in a hundred years\u2019 time.<\/p>\n
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\u201cFor our visitors, it is the perfect project through which they can trace the lines from our heritage collections, to our present day and then towards our imagined futures.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is incredibly moving that some of these ideas will have a permanent home for the next 100 years in this time capsule in The MERL garden and to speculate how many of those ideas might be realised.”<\/p>\n
The capsule is intended to be reopened in 2126, offering future generations a window into the University\u2019s centenary year.<\/p>\n
An archive of its contents will be preserved at The MERL, with a public exhibition planned to open in September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"