a couple outside of their home in an off-the-grid community

Inside the Off-the-Grid Ecovillage Fighting London's Airport Expansion

On the site of Heathrow's planned third runway, these protesters have built a sustainable, environmentally conscious community.

A resident of Grow Heathrow, posing with her partner, carries the first child conceived at the site. The pair lived at Grow Heathrow for years but moved to a houseboat before the baby was born.
Photograph by Jonathan Goldberg, INSTITUTE

Nestled between London’s roaring M4 and M25 motorways is an ecological utopia, born out of a political struggle against climate chaos. Its wooden houses, DIY turbines, and vegetable patches stand in defiance to environmental damage.

Photographer Jonathan Goldberg first visited Grow Heathrow a year after its inception and has returned on and off for seven years. “I saw it grow in the early days from a small community to a place of permanence,” says Goldberg. He also witnessed a changing personality; as characters came and went, so the spirit and purpose of the site morphed and developed. “There can be some really inspiring people who are there who are wanting to change the world,” he says. “And other people

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