Signs of Life was designed to bring hands-on practical activity into the garden and to enhance it through the creation of an eye-catching exhibition, which would also act as a learning and teaching resource. At the same time the project was to provide a meaningful way for groups from different social and cultural backgrounds (some isolated and hard to reach) to meet, share, exchange and find communality. Participants were to be recruited from across the city, in order to bring together children and adults from a range of community groups, some new to the Hermitage of Braid and Blackford Hill nature reserve and others already using the community garden.