All senses on board! Join us for an immersive experience at the Youth Panel Takeover Day. This year’s theme is centred around ‘Our Seasonal Senses’.

We invite young people aged 16-24 to explore London’s oldest botanic Garden and enjoy sensorial activities.

The Youth Panel Takeover Day will include:

• Immersive tours of the Garden in its autumnal beauty with Youth Panel members, 11am – 3:30pm (various timings) at the Garden.
• An opportunity to bring your creativity and get stuck into a Botanical Balm Making Workshop with Ali Yellop, 12pm-1pm at the Gallery space. Instagram: @earth.tenders
• A chance to connect your taste buds over a tea bag making workshop & guided meditation. The workshop is titled ‘Plants for Planetary Survival’ with Maia Magoga, who will be using medicinal herbs & plants. 1pm-3pm at The Gallery space.
• A Discussion panel, and interactive Q&As for an inspiring day connected to ‘Our Seasonal Senses’, 3pm-4pm at the Gallery Space. Speakers are Daze Aghaji and Maymana Arefin.

Chelsea Physic Garden’s Youth Panel is consisted of young people, aged 16-24 who represent a broad range of youth voices. The Panel members help the Garden ensure that younger audiences are actively considered and engaged.

Booking Information

• The £5 General Takeover Day Entry ticket offers access to the Garden and the drop-in Immersive Tour, but does not include a spot to the Workshop(s), or to the Panel Discussion.
• To book a spot to the Workshop(s) of your choice and/or the Panel Discussion, you will need to both book the £5 General Takeover Day Entry ticket, and the relevant £1 individual ticket(s).
• Please note that the Workshops and the Panel Discussion of the Takeover Day will take place in our first floor Gallery space, which unfortunately is not wheelchair accessible.
• The Immersive Tours will take place outdoors at the Garden, please dress appropriately for the weather and bring an umbrella if needed.

If you have any questions prior to the event or wish to discuss accessibility, please email

Facilitators’ Bios

Maia Magoga

Maia Magoga is an artist, cook and educator who works primarily with food as both subject and object. She is interested in the social and ecological dimensions of food; the ways in which it connects communities while also shaping the landscapes around us. She considers food to be her love language: a ritual tool for sharing magic, and a space for collective healing. She co-founded gobyfish collective in 2019, an artists’ cooking collective that hosts conceptual meals and experimental offerings which foreground seasonal, foraged and medicinal foods.

Daze Aghaji

At just 23, Daze is a dynamic force of nature. Hailing from London, she is a climate justice activist whose advocacy for radical systemic change centers on youth political engagement, regenerative cultures, social justice, and intersectionality. The Guardian has described her as a ‘ball of energy, conviction and warmth’. Her bold activism has led her to working with an array of leading NGOs, governments, institutions and grassroots change-makers globally. She has been closely involved with the climate movement Extinction Rebellion since its formative days, later going on to become a founding member of the youth faction, Extinction Rebellion Youth. Amazingly, Daze became the youngest candidate to stand in a European Parliamentary election in 2019; running as a Climate Emergency Independent to highlight the need to reimagine political systems and participation. Later, she successfully brought a judicial review against the UK Government over gaps in policy to meet the previous carbon budgets which forced the government to release the Net Zero Strategy ahead of COP26. In 2022, her work was recognised by the Royal Society of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce as she became a selected honorary fellow of the society. Formally, Daze was the Creative Director and COO at Earthrise Studio, Regenerative Culture Coordinator and strategist for Extinction Rebellion UK and a contributor to Sky TV’s environmental series. Instagram:  @Dazeaghaji

Maymana Arefin (she/they)

Maymana Arefin (she/they) is a multidisciplinary British-Bengali artist, community organiser, writer and facilitator based in London. Her practice spans mediums such as spoken word poetry, clay work, collage and painting in response to themes of ecology, grief, embodiment and the power of collective imagining. In 2020, Maymana founded @fungi.futures, a space to map radical alternative futures guided by her joy and passion for fungi. Through leading nature immersions, plant and fungi walks, her work continues to focus on deep rest and healing and restoring our communion with non-human kin. Maymana’s award-winning MSc research on how the mycelial networks of fungi may be used as a metaphor for mutual aid seeks to re-imagine an unjust world through a politics of hope. She is strongly committed to justice – in all of its forms – and believes that in order to realise this, we must prioritise care.

The Youth Panel Takeover Day is part of our Chelsea Physic Garden’s 350 anniversary year.