A Filipino photographer's new life in Aotearoa was turned around after he discovered a new way to grow connections with community and land. Produced by Kadambari Raghukumar

"When I started growing, it was crazy how my neighbours started reacting. I started to make a lot of friends with them. I had passersby saying thank you for growing these sunflowers!" I had 30 sunflowers extending their heads over the fence at one time."

"It's all about extending your love - not just to your family, but beyond - your neighbours, friends, extending your love to all living organisms."

That in a nutshell pretty much sums up Charles Buenconsejo's attitude in life - both in his garden and outside.

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Charles and his wife Grace - who he says is his 'first garden', moved to New Zealand four years ago. Settling in was far from easy for the couple. Struggling to find work while making do with low-cost, cramped accomodation shared with neighbours who ranged from ex-prisoners to prostitutes, gang members, addicts and struggling migrants all in the mix, was an anthropological insight, as Charles calls it. It was a rough landing into New Zealand that was a result of a Google search that pointed them to the cheapest accomodation in Auckland - which in hindsight Charles describes to have felt more like a 'correctional institution". It was a picture they hadn't quite seen in the brochures they were given in Manila about migrating to New Zealand.

It was after while when they slowly started saving some money and made some contacts that they eventually moved to a home in a suburb in west Auckland. A home with a backyard. But a shadow of cultural dislocation and depression followed Charles. Unable to find work, trapped at home while the building sites next door drove him further into his isolation and sense of displacement. He found himself caught in a vortex of Youtube algorithms that peddled fear of a "dystopian future". Working as a self-employed artist and photographer, each day became a hustle to find work.

Charles came upon Stone Soup, a community run magazine by Aaron Mclean - an ardent advocate of connecting community through food, a passionate gardener and a photographer himself. The two became friends quickly. Aaron spoke of the ideas of 'changing the algorithm' and learning how to 'engineer paradise' simply by getting out and getting one's hands dirty by planting…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details