other sights

Two urban agriculture projects

Grow
At the Bulk­head Urban Agri­cul­ture Lab until Novem­ber 30

MOPARRC
At North China Creek Park until Sep­tem­ber 21

by Robin Lau­rence, August 22, 2011

Orig­i­nal Arti­cle | Down­load (PDF — 406KB)

It may not have been the nadir of my dim­ness, but it was cer­tainly the most twit­like thing I did last week­end. Believ­ing the end time was the start time, I arrived at the Grow project’s mason-bee work­shop three hours late, just after the par­tic­i­pants had left. Still, the enthu­si­asm of artist Holly Schmidt and land­scape archi­tec­ture stu­dent Chloe Ben­nett shone on undi­min­ished. Stand­ing in the mid­dle of what’s been dubbed the “Bulk­head Urban Agri­cul­ture Lab”, a public-art project on the south shore of False Creek, just west of the Olympic Vil­lage, they gen­er­ously shared their knowl­edge and insights.

Ben­nett, who led the work­shop, gave me some lit­er­a­ture on mason bees, extolled the early-spring pol­li­nat­ing capac­i­ties of these lit­tle blue crea­tures, and described ways of hous­ing them in urban set­tings. Schmidt, who is the lead artist of Grow: An Art + Urban Agri­cul­ture Project, sketched out that enterprise’s scope and man­date. Orga­nized by Other Sights for Artists’ Projects, Grow is both an inter­ven­tion in a mar­ginal patch of land near the for­mer city works yard and an exper­i­ment in grow­ing food in a “postin­dus­trial” landscape.

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with other groups and indi­vid­u­als, Grow cul­ti­vates a wide array of veg­eta­bles, herbs, and edi­ble flow­ers in reclaimed and repur­posed con­tain­ers, all sit­ting on recy­cled wooden ship­ping pal­lets. At the same time, it spon­sors walks and work­shops, and—against a back­drop of high-end con­dos and the non­con­sul­ta­tive hideosity that is B.C. Place—promotes dia­logue around issues of “sus­tain­abil­ity, food secu­rity, and col­lec­tive ini­tia­tives in urban areas,” Schmidt says (see www.growurbanagricultureproject. ca/).

The Bulk­head is also, she empha­sizes, a place of social inter­ac­tion and com­mu­nity involve­ment. “A lot of peo­ple come onto site and end up shar­ing their ideas about gardening—and meet­ing their neigh­bours.” And it’s true: on this sunny day, with bicy­clists, jog­gers, and dog walk­ers stream­ing past, many urban­ites stop to look, talk, vol­un­teer, and admire the crops of kale and beets, pota­toes and toma­toes, mus­tard, mint, and… mindfulness.

The Means of Pro­duc­tion gar­den is an active com­mu­nity space, too. And some­how I man­aged to arrive there last week in ample time for a work­shop on “inva­sive basketry”—making use­ful things out of strands of culled inva­sive plants such as Scotch broom and morn­ing glory—led by artist Sharon Kallis. Before the other par­tic­i­pants arrived, Kallis toured me through the upper part of the gar­den, at the cor­ner of East 6th Avenue and St. Catherine’s Street, and recounted its ori­gins. In 2002, this small par­cel of land, pre­vi­ously used as a dump, was planted and cul­ti­vated as a source of artists’ mate­ri­als, includ­ing fibres and dyes, under the guid­ance of artist Oliver Kell­ham­mer work­ing with the Envi­ron­men­tal Youth Alliance. After Kell­ham­mer left the project, Kallis said, the artists’ part of the gar­den declined, although the EYA con­tin­ued to work with the com­mu­nity, expand­ing the grow­ing space down the hill to include indige­nous plants and a ter­raced fruit orchard.

In 2007, Kallis and oth­ers came together to form the Means of Pro­duc­tion Artists’ Raw Resource Col­lec­tive, to revive MOP’s orig­i­nal aspi­ra­tion to grow mate­ri­als, such as wil­low, that artists could use in their prac­tices. As well, they con­duct work­shops, give talks, and—not least—organize com­mu­nity tea par­ties. (The last tea party of the sea­son will be on August 28 from 1 to 4 p.m. See moparrc.wordpress.com/ for info on pro­grams and events.)

MOPARRC also spon­sors res­i­den­cies for artists who want to exper­i­ment with the grow­ing space allot­ted to annu­als, using it as “a liv­ing lab”, Kallis said. “Pierre Leich­ner is right now doing a project that is about con­trol­ling nature, where nature over­comes. He’s doing root-binding exper­i­ments with dif­fer­ent food crops.” At the same time, musi­cian David Gow­man has been cul­ti­vat­ing an array of plants as sus­tain­able mate­ri­als for mak­ing wind instruments.

Nei­ther Grow nor MOPARRC is going to win any awards for the beauty of their gar­dens —but that’s not what they’re about. The orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als behind them are mak­ing a new genre of pub­lic art that focuses on com­mu­nity, util­ity, sus­tain­abil­ity, and reclaim­ing mar­ginal urban areas for cul­ti­va­tion. Schmidt and Kallis cre­ate green works that don’t merely reg­is­ter con­cern but that actively develop solu­tions to problems—and that seed new ways to involve us all, early and late, in our urban environment.