A couple of weeks ago, I spent a Saturday afternoon helping facilitate a workshop for Grow: an art and urban agriculture project. The Grow project is multi-faceted participatory art project exploring themes of community development, food security and urban agriculture through a series of workshops, lectures and “creative experiments in urban agriculture.”
The main site for the Grow project is a 10,400 sq ft. plot of land on the north side of the seawall walkway in SEFC. Over the summer, this land will gradually be transformed into a community garden, through a series of sculptural installations. Dubbed “the Bulkhead Laboratory,” the plot is a transitional space, an overgrown remnant of False Creek’s industrial past sitting next to the carefully designed landscaping of SEFC and the deliberately constructed habitat island. It is space that has the power to challenge our definitions of “urban green space,” “community gardens,” “public open space.”
The workshop I attended, the second in an ongoing series, focused on exploring urban agriculture, specifically, creative solutions to growing food crops in containers and small spaces. The workshop began with a presentation from lead artist Holly Schmidt and collaborator/industrial designer Ocean Dionne of the Vancouver Design Nerds. They presented some creative container designs and art projects from around the world, and the group discussed the requirements for growing mediums, drainage, light and other considerations for container gardening.
After the presentation and discussion, we took a walk around Southeast False Creek. The discussion turned to the prescribed nature of the landscape. It was noted that despite the fact that there is lot of “green space” in Vancouver, much of it is not available to residents to use to grow food, or even to use as they see fit. The landscaping around SEFC is beautiful and it meant to be looked at. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but the popularity of community gardens in recent years shows that Vancouverites are seeking out green spaces that they can participate in, green spaces that can be productive as well as decorative.
We spent some time discussing the possibilities for agricultural interventions into the existing landscape. Self-watering gardens floating in the water features? Using magnets for attaching containers to metal fixtures or furniture? Are there possibilities for creating small productive spaces within this decorative landscape? We eventually made our way over and took a quick look at the Bulkhead Lab, a completely non-prescribed space where our ideas could be given form.
The rest of the afternoon was spent sketching out, creating and planting some simple containers. Then we installed them over at the Bulkhead.
The Grow project will be going on all summer. There are upcoming tours, talks, workshops and work parties. Check out the Grow website for more information.