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Infor­mal Com­mu­ni­ties:
Celes­tial, Ter­res­trial and Sub­ter­ranean Movements

Randy Lee Cutler

Win­ter: Wet­ter than Nor­mal
Spring equinox — March 20, 2011 at 11:35 pm
A La Niña pat­tern this year meant stormier weather for the 2010–2011 sea­son bring­ing cool ocean tem­per­a­tures to the Pacific Northwest.

The Grow Project and the Bulk­head Urban Agri­cul­ture Lab began ger­mi­nat­ing long before the first seeds were sown and ended long after the har­vest­ing of car­rots, mus­tards greens, pump­kins, and other crops. A con­cate­na­tion of per­for­mance art, sculp­ture, social prac­tice and still unnamed forms of emer­gent cre­ativ­ity, Grow was a year-long event that took up sus­tain­abil­ity and knowl­edge exchange as a fluid process of gar­den­ing, work­shops, walks and other pub­lic events. With its pri­mary focus on ideas engen­dered through socia­bil­ity and com­mu­nity, it is not sur­pris­ing that artist Holly Schmidt invited Duane Elverum and myself to dis­cuss her research and plans: we share sim­i­lar inter­ests in cre­ative ped­a­gogy and con­sid­er­a­tions of eco­log­i­cal issues through dia­logue and prac­tice. Not far from the project site, the last remain­ing sec­tion of unde­vel­oped sea­wall sit­u­ated on the periph­ery of the Olympic Vil­lage in South East False Creek, Schmidt’s stu­dio was an accom­mo­dat­ing envi­ron­ment that set the scene for an expan­sive, and ongo­ing con­ver­sa­tion. At the time of our meet­ing, she had already spent a fair amount of time work­ing with the City to secure this par­cel of land for a tem­po­rary art occu­pa­tion. Pro­ceed­ing from her cross-disciplinary prac­tice, Schmidt solicited ideas that would fur­ther open up the project to com­mu­nity encoun­ters. Often referred to as the Bulk­head, the fal­low patch of land posed some chal­lenges for the artist’s vision of an uncon­ven­tional social space for the shar­ing of infor­ma­tion and prac­tices whether through work­shops, walks or vol­un­teer par­tic­i­pa­tion in a tem­po­rary gar­den. Still nascent in form we con­sid­ered the ecol­ogy of the site, try­ing to imag­ine its exact loca­tion and the state of its dere­lic­tion. Dis­cus­sion turned to strate­gies for gar­den­ing in a post-industrial land­scape includ­ing the chal­lenges of grow­ing food with­out plant­ing any­thing directly in the ground and in the absence of imme­di­ate access to a safe, potable water supply.

From its incep­tion it was clear that Grow would be an inno­v­a­tive art­work through its blur­ring of dis­ci­pli­nary bound­aries and provoca­tive engage­ment with com­mu­nity and pub­lic space. The simul­ta­ne­ous engage­ment and sug­gested cri­tique of con­tem­po­rary issues around food, urban­iza­tion, and every­day life made for a timely encounter.¹ To this end, Schmidt talked about strate­gies for how she would grow food in large indus­trial bags pre­vi­ously used to ship bulk sugar and the resources she was sourc­ing for acquir­ing donated seeds, plants, earth, etc. Draw­ing on her train­ing as an artist and an edu­ca­tor, it was clear even at this early stage that Grow would bear wit­ness to a pub­lic dis­play of reci­procity and tra­di­tional knowl­edge exchange. The evening ended with a shared sense of antic­i­pa­tion for this extended art work invested as it is in com­mu­nity engage­ment, sus­tain­abil­ity, gar­den­ing, food secu­rity and emer­gent forms of dialogue.

Spring: Below-average Tem­per­a­tures
Another week­end of below-average tem­per­a­tures made this the cold­est April and May on record for Metro Vancouver.

On May 7, 2011 Grow, the art and urban agri­cul­ture project was launched with Explor­ing Sus­tain­abil­ity and Urban Agri­cul­ture, a walk­ing dia­logue through South East False Creek. Although it began with over­cast skies, which then descended into a rainy after­noon, the expe­ri­ence was enlight­en­ing. Par­tic­i­pants shared their thoughts on city plan­ning, the impli­ca­tions for using par­tic­u­lar con­struc­tion mate­ri­als and the habi­ta­tion of the area, what had been destroyed and what was in the process of evolv­ing and regen­er­at­ing. This dis­cus­sion was fol­lowed by approx­i­mately fif­teen of us traips­ing on the now wet bulk­head site and draw­ing dia­grams on increas­ingly soggy paper des­ig­nat­ing on one map the “strong cen­ter” or loca­tions that shouldn’t be dis­turbed and on another an area that needed help, that was in fact, call­ing out for repair. The event con­cluded with a pas­sion­ate and informed exchange on cur­rent issues in land­scape archi­tec­ture and design. Sched­uled walks con­tin­ued through the spring, sum­mer and fall nur­tur­ing peri­patetic dia­logue on sus­tain­able design that pro­vided a plat­form for col­lab­o­ra­tive learning.

Later in the month of May with the wet soil con­di­tions unabated, the Van­cou­ver Design Nerds and some mas­ter gar­den­ers joined Schmidt for a work­shop at the local com­mu­nity cen­ter that explored strate­gies for grow­ing food in the urban envi­ron­ment. I was unable to attend but was thrilled to see the pocket gar­dens that were fab­ri­cated dur­ing this gath­er­ing installed along the chain link fence near the Grow project site. Bik­ing along the False Creek south sea­wall through­out the sum­mer, orange, yel­low and red nas­tur­tiums poked their way out of these minia­ture con­i­cal gar­dens. As a col­lec­tive exper­i­men­ta­tion in urban space, local res­i­dents, dog walk­ers, tourists and cyclists alike would stop and enjoy the flow­ers, talk with vol­un­teers and artists on the site and inquire as to what exactly was blos­som­ing at this strange inter­sec­tion. Later in Decem­ber that year, while read­ing Wen­dell Berry’s book Bring­ing it to the Table: on farm­ing and food, I was struck by the author’s state­ment that “ […] an agri­cul­ture using nature, includ­ing human nature, as its mea­sure would approach the world in the man­ner of a con­ver­sa­tion­al­ist”² and was reminded of the ongo­ing dia­logue that was the very essence of the Grow project. Rather than mere con­sumers, par­tic­i­pants wit­nessed, indeed engaged with grow­ing and eat­ing as con­tin­gent agri­cul­tural and social expe­ri­ences that remind us of our fun­da­men­tal and embod­ied rela­tion­al­ity with the world we inhabit.

Sum­mer: Heavy Rain­fall Warn­ing
Sum­mer sol­stice — June 21, 2011 at 6:15 pm
On the last day of sum­mer Envi­ron­ment Canada issued a heavy rain­fall warn­ing for the entire West Coast of B.C., end­ing what may be one of the worst sum­mer in years.

By the begin­ning of July with the sun only start­ing to make a reg­u­lar appear­ance Grow had fully installed itself on the site. Slip­ping into the local flora and fauna, and graft­ing some of its own, a com­po­si­tion of ele­ments lay down its roots and rhythms with liv­ing organ­isms com­ing together in a socia­ble con­ver­sa­tion. On July 24 I attended the Van­cou­ver Hen­house work­shop and learned some of the basics in the proper care and keep­ing of small urban flocks of hens. The “Van­cooper” was installed at the Lab on the pre­vi­ous day so that work­shop leader Dun­can Mar­tin could demon­strate how easy the prospect of fresh eggs can be. I was delighted to be sur­rounded by par­tic­i­pants who were clearly invested in these inno­v­a­tive ini­tia­tives and engag­ing the chal­leng­ing rela­tions between liv­ing beings. Unfor­tu­nately I missed Chloe Bennett’s dis­cus­sion on mason bee habi­tat and the proper meth­ods of build­ing a mason bee home in the city. The cur­rent degraded state of bee colonies (CCD or colony col­lapse dis­or­der) is such an impor­tant issue par­tic­u­larly as bees pol­li­nate more than one third of all food crops. Put another way, every third bite is brought to us by bees.³ For­tu­nately, my fas­ci­na­tion for insects was some­what appeased when I returned on August 19 for the Ladybug’s Lunch with Maria Keat­ing, a bio­log­i­cal con­trol con­sul­tant who shared her exten­sive knowl­edge of back­yard ecosys­tems. Grow’s con­cern for estab­lish­ing infor­mal com­mu­ni­ties came into focus and here its mem­bers included pol­li­na­tors, native preda­tors and com­pan­ion plant­ing. I was par­tic­u­larly taken with the car­niv­o­rous flora, what Dar­win in 1875 called insec­tiv­o­rous plants that trap and con­sume insects and pro­mote envi­ron­men­tal stewardship.

Through­out the sum­mer Grow demon­strated its capac­ity for encour­ag­ing affec­tive expe­ri­ences. In a com­bi­na­tion of dura­tional lab work and field sci­ence, the study of human ethos with its inte­gra­tion of evo­lu­tion, ecol­ogy and behav­ioral processes, took up res­i­dence. “ [This etho­log­i­cal] approach is no less valid for us, for human beings, than for ani­mals, because no one knows ahead of time the affects one is capa­ble of: it is a long affair of exper­i­men­ta­tion, requir­ing last­ing pru­dence.”⁴ With its extended instal­la­tion from May 1 to Novem­ber 30 2011, the Grow gar­den car­ried its audi­ence of par­tic­i­pants through time in the daily expe­ri­ence of its exper­i­men­tal res­i­dency. Pre­cisely because there was no clearly elab­o­rated sense of the whole; because engag­ing with the project was a con­tin­gent expe­ri­ence that changed daily and with the sea­sons, Grow offered oppor­tu­ni­ties for strong embod­ied con­nec­tions as well as affec­tive aes­thetic plea­sure and dis­plea­sure. Appar­ently one fel­low com­plained about what he per­ceived as the site’s dis­ar­ray and lack of con­ven­tional gar­den aes­thet­ics. Accord­ing to philoso­pher Gilles Deleuze “The impor­tant thing is to under­stand life, each liv­ing indi­vid­u­al­ity, not as a form, or a devel­op­ment of form, but as a com­plex rela­tion between dif­fer­ent veloc­i­ties, between decel­er­a­tion and accel­er­a­tion of par­ti­cles.”⁵ This is an impor­tant reminder of our mul­ti­ple rela­tion­ships with a given site, art­work, peo­ple, plants and other liv­ing organ­isms. While I attended work­shops, read reviews, checked the blog and reg­u­larly biked past Grow, the occu­pa­tion itself was evi­dence of the prox­im­ity between art and life.

By Sept 8 the sum­mer was in full swing with the gar­den pro­duc­ing an abun­dance of corn, zuc­chini, pump­kins, cucum­bers, radishes, kale, beets, mus­tard greens, green beans, car­rots, toma­toes, rose­mary, mint, fen­nel, dill, sage, lemon ver­bena, oregano, basil, chives and of course the deli­cious and colour­ful nas­tur­tiums. On Oct 5 as part of the annual autum­nal art event called Swarm, the Grow project offered 1 metre to 100 mile organic tast­ings pre­pared by urban farmer and wild for­ager Alexan­der McNaughton. In the mid­dle of the site, at one of the strong cen­ters left as an open space for con­gre­gat­ing, we feasted on heir­loom toma­toes, tomatil­los wrapped in papery husks, maroon coloured car­rots and hand­made arti­san cheese. What remains are mem­o­ries of a cre­pus­cu­lar sky, inten­sive encoun­ters and admit­tedly anony­mous veg­eta­bles mak­ing acquain­tance with my taste buds. How could one not be affected by the local har­vest and socia­ble twilight?

Fall: Balmy Warm Weather
Autumn equinox – Sept 23, 2011 at 9:04 am
Sep­tem­ber brought balmy warm weather to Van­cou­ver. The long range fore­cast showed sun­shine last­ing well into the month with tem­per­a­tures into the 20’s.

By Oct 22 the celes­tial, ter­res­trial and sub­ter­ranean move­ments of the sea­sons were wend­ing their way through har­vest to the fal­low sleepi­ness of win­ter with the final Grow event. Bring­ing seeds gleaned from my own back­yard gar­den and neatly pack­aged in home­made envelopes, I attended the Grow Seed Exchange at the local com­mu­nity cen­tre where some rather robust arugula seeds were swapped for mint, kale, mus­tard, cilantro, dill and lupin seeds. In addi­tion to sow­ing them in my gar­den, I was instructed to plant these seeds around Van­cou­ver to ensure that Grow keeps ger­mi­nat­ing. Now, as spring returns once again and the qui­es­cent life in these seeds begins to emerge, Grow returns as a porous phys­i­cal and philo­soph­i­cal ecosys­tem. The project, an encounter with infor­mal com­mu­ni­ties, chal­lenges our think­ing about aes­thet­ics, gar­den­ing, learn­ing, local ecol­ogy and con­ver­sa­tion. Not unlike a mas­ter gar­dener, Schmidt sows the pos­si­bil­ity of emer­gence by open­ing a space for its expres­sive poten­tial with­out know­ing in advance what will be elicited and how the project itself might evolve. And that, in a way, is what Grow real­ized in its year­long habi­ta­tion expe­ri­enced through the mate­r­ial agency of weather, hours of day­light and local ecology.

Foot­notes

1. Urban farm­ing has many char­ac­ter­is­tics and is prac­ticed for a vari­ety of rea­sons from recre­ation and relax­ation to income earn­ing and food-production. An added ben­e­fit is the use of vacant urban spaces for agri­cul­ture pro­duc­tion pro­vid­ing fresh locale fruit and veg­eta­bles to urban con­sumers. [↩]
2. Wen­dell Berry, ‘The Plea­sures of Eat­ing’ in Bring­ing It to the Table: On Farm­ing and Food, Berke­ley: Coun­ter­point, 2009, p. 7. [↩]
3. Here is a list of what bees pol­li­nate: Alfalfa hay and seeds, Almonds, Apples, Apri­cots, Aspara­gus, Avo­ca­does, Beets, Blue­ber­ries, Boy­sen­ber­ries, Broc­coli, Car­rots, Can­taloupe, Cau­li­flower, cel­ery, Cher­ries, Cit­rus, Cot­ton seed, Cran­ber­ries, Cucum­bers, Grapes, Hon­ey­dew, Kiwifruit, Logan­ber­ries, Macadamia nuts, Nec­tarines, Olives, Onions, Peaches, Peanuts, Pears, Plums/Prunes, Pump­kins, Rasp­ber­ries, Soy­beans and other legumes, Squash, Straw­ber­ries, Sun­flow­ers and Water­mel­ons [↩]
4. Gilles Deleuze, Spin­oza: Prac­ti­cal Phi­los­o­phy, San Fran­cisco: City Lights Pub­lish­ers, 2001, p. 125. I have drawn on this ref­er­ence both for the cre­ative poten­tial of its ideas and as a text that has informed Schmidt’s own think­ing about her art prac­tice. [↩]
5. Ibid. p. 123. [↩]