{"id":7461,"date":"2014-11-02T14:04:53","date_gmt":"2014-11-02T19:04:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/?p=7461"},"modified":"2025-05-15T05:57:39","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T09:57:39","slug":"how-can-art-in-all-its-forms-exhibits-installations-and-provocations-be-a-better-catalyst-to-raise-awareness-support-and-momentum-for-urban-nature-and-green-spaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/2014\/11\/02\/how-can-art-in-all-its-forms-exhibits-installations-and-provocations-be-a-better-catalyst-to-raise-awareness-support-and-momentum-for-urban-nature-and-green-spaces\/","title":{"rendered":"How can art (in all its forms), exhibits, installations and provocations be a better catalyst to raise awareness, support and momentum for urban nature and green spaces?\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Authors in This Roundtable<\/h3>\n
Jennifer Adams, New York<\/a>
\nCollaborative\/participatory art is an expression of lived experience and cannot be described separately from the urban green spaces in which it is produced. <\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Pippin Anderson, Cape Town<\/a>
\nNature-related graffiti checks the boxes of art that supports urban nature. We need more though, and to this end we must nurture the artists who produce it and foster a culture of dissidence and provocation with respect to nature in our cities.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Marielle Anzelone, New York<\/a>
\nPopUp Forest: Times Square will give visitors an immersive natural area experience in the most iconically un-natural place on the planet. We will transform a public plaza in Times Square into a large-scale temporary nature installation.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Stephanie Britton, Byron Bay<\/a>
\nTrends towards collaborative work where art and science intersect can open up startling new possibilities for artists to influence the thinking of the gatekeepers of public art. <\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Pauline Bullen, Harare<\/a>
\nIn Harare, Zimbabwe where I have been living for the past year, I have strolled through and driven past community flower, art and sculpture gardens and have had the pleasure of observing much that is astonishingly beautiful<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Tim Collins, Glasgow<\/a>
\nI would like to ask the reader to entertain the idea that urban nature has robust experiential value and can have eco-system authenticity but it primarily serves as a cultural ecology. Its power emerges in dialogue with images and media, narratives, scientific characterization and actual experience with exurban nature. <\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Emiio Fantin, Milan<\/a>
\nArtists working in urban public spaces, or in natural contexts, have an innately different approach from those work in the solitude of private studios. Artists working in public spaces must deal with an array of diverse and uncontrolled quantities \u2013 with the agency of people, environment, soil, pollution, the weather and so on.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Lloyd Godman, Melbourne<\/a>
\nBy working with plants as a medium and utilizing existing architectural infrastructure, artists can effect change in urban nature and green spaces<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Julie Goodness, Stockholm<\/a>
\nHow can we spur our fellow city residents to make their own creative expressions and entreaties about their hopes for the city? One interesting possibility is participatory art.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Noel Hefele, New York<\/a>
\nArt expands the dialogue between nature and culture from which the world is perceived and understood by gathering senses of alternate value and aesthetic appreciation.\u2028<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Todd Lester, San Paolo<\/a>
\nAn restaurant-artist collabortation in San Paolo to create community.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Patrick Lydon, San Jose & Seoul<\/a>
\nI believe it is critically important to also recognize\u2014especially if we are to be mindful of nature and ecological working habits\u2014 that physical pieces needn’t always be case and point for urban art. <\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Elliott Maltby, New York<\/a>
\nKnowledge + awareness are not sufficient catalysts for change, art must embrace collaboration, embodied participation + the mysterious<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Mary Miss, New York<\/a>
\nOur aim is to advance public understanding of the natural systems and infrastructure that support life in the city. Its strategies are grounded in place-based experience that make sustainability personal, visceral, tangible, and encourages citizen and governmental action. <\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Lorenza Perelli, Chicago<\/a>
\nThese interdisciplinary projects relate urban planning, art and design to nature. They all support alternative mode of living through an innovative reuse of the public spaces, fostering a new model of participatory practices, such as self organized planning realized by citizens, artists and designers for the common goods. <\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Stephanie Radok, Adelaide<\/a>
\nArt is always potentially a bearer of the conscious recognition of sharing the world with other life forms, animate and inanimate, past and present.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Lisa Terreni, Wellington<\/a>
\nExhibitions create opportunities for reflection, ongoing debate, and generate ideas for change. Environmental art interventions are often uplifting and inspiring.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Shawn Van Sluys, Guelph<\/a>
\nThe power of sound lies in its potential for displacing the ordinary\u2014its immediacy in our consciousness and its gradual lending of coherence to our understanding of place.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n
Todd Lester<\/div>\n
\n

about the writer
\n Todd Lester<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n

Todd Lester is an artist and cultural producer. He has worked in leadership, advocacy and strategic planning roles at Global Arts Corps, Reporters sans frontiers, and Astraea Lesbian Justice Foundation. He founded freeDimensional and Lanchonete.org\u2014a new project focused on daily life in the center of S\u00e3o Paulo. <\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

Todd Lester<\/h3>\n

Artists cultivating food systems<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

When I\u2019m asked how\u00a0Lanchonete.org<\/a>\u00a0is art by a curator, I often feel like it\u2019s a test to see whether I\u2019ll reference Gordon Matta-Clark\u2019s\u00a0FOOD<\/a>, a restaurant the artist\/ architect and colleagues started in lower Manhattan in the 1970. Sometimes I start my response with what differentiates\u00a0Lanchonete.org<\/a>\u00a0from FOOD, or share the variety of influences\u2014from French cooperative bistros to Welsh pubs, from\u00a0Fast & French<\/a>\u00a0in Charleston, South Carolina made by artists,\u00a0JEMAGWGA<\/a>\u00a0to the 70s Lanchonarte project by Brazilian collective, Equipe 3\u2014that inform and inspire the making of\u00a0Lanchonete.org<\/a>. When folks from outside the art world ask the same question, I\u2019m excited \u2026 excited to share these examples but also because the project\u2019s personality and aspirations reach into a range of spaces and co-mingle with everyday life. While we are making the container, what happens in that space, and on the broader platform, can be authored by anyone, artist or not.<\/p>\n

\"garten\"<\/a>
Used with permission from Cities Without Hunger (cidade sem rome)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lanchonete.org<\/a>\u00a0is the evolving, materializing result of both my artistic practice\u2014one that is both research-based and curious about organizational form\u2014and a process of community organizing by a group of diverse stakeholders, that includes artists yet not as a majority. This dual persona is what makes\u00a0Lanchonete.org<\/a>\u00a0such a dynamic process, and I actually love how it doesn\u2019t have to be understood as art by everyone who encounters it.<\/p>\n

Given the topic of urban nature and green spaces, I immediately think of the urban sprawl and congestion of S\u00e3o Paulo, and how the municipal electric company, ElectroPaulo, is the primary holder of remaining green space\u2014the space under power lines\u2014in the city.\u00a0Lanchonete.org<\/a>\u00a0is a five-year project, and in the first two years, our focus is on developing strong partnerships from key sectors and populations, which we feel are foundational to the project. These include both\u00a0GastroMotiva<\/a>\u00a0(culinary vocational training) and\u00a0Cities Without Hunger<\/a>\u00a0(urban gardening), which partners with ElectroPaulo in the East part of S\u00e3o Paulo where unemployment is at the highest level in the city.<\/p>\n

GastroMotiva<\/a>\u00a0trains at-risk, urban youth to cook and become chefs in professional kitchens.\u00a0Cities Without Hunger<\/a>\u00a0teaches households how to grow produce in urban conditions provides both a healthy diet and income-generating opportunities. Cumulatively the gardens under\u00a0Cities Without Hunger<\/a>\u00a0management produce at a surplus; therefore it is possible for a restaurant to buy directly from producers. It shares a very similar ethos with\u00a0GastroMotiva<\/a>, to first improve food preparation and dietary habits at the household level that, in turn, leads to employment opportunities and holistic betterment in families, communities, neighborhoods, business and the city.<\/p>\n

We plan to purchase our produce from\u00a0Cities Without Hunger<\/a>\u00a0and hire our restaurant staff from the ranks of\u00a0GastroMotiva<\/a>\u00a0trainees. Furthermore, we have asked the founders of both organizations to be part of an advisory council for\u00a0Lanchonete.org<\/a>, and are planning a hybrid ownership model whereby their organizations can serve as anchors within the association\u2019s membership if so desired. Both organizations (whose stakeholders are primarily from the periphery) have expressed an interest in having a central location\u2014or food\/food service lab\u2014in the Centro for a variety of reasons; therefore, its makes sense to enter discussions with them now regarding future usage and management of the restaurant facility.<\/p>\n

{ii}<\/p>\n

As you might imagine, I\u2019ve been thinking about food systems a lot since starting the\u00a0Lanchonete.org<\/a>\u00a0project in S\u00e3o Paolo these past years. In the same period, a steady stream of stimuli started coming my way. Over a year ago, the Vera List Center for Art & Politics presented programming entitled\u00a0Your food is on its way<\/a>, that focused\u2014in part\u2014on food delivery workers in New York City and how online aggregating services, such as\u00a0Seamless<\/a>, can result in longer delivery routes by offering the customer more options yet do not encourage higher tips to the delivery person. So whereas the customer perceives improved services, the delivery people, often informal, immigrant laborers, suffer lower earnings.<\/p>\n

A friend told me about the international peasants\u2019 movement\u00a0La Via Campesina<\/a>\u00a0and its\u00a0Food Sovereignty Principles<\/a>; and most recently Thiago, a Brazilian friend in NYC, recounted his trip to Queens to visit the office of Tania Bruguera’s\u00a0Immigrant Movement International<\/a>, and witnessed some police stopping a food vendor out front and throwing away her food. The food cart generally and Thiago’s experience specifically remind us that we live in a time when the very cultural (by which I mean broader than artistic\/creative) reference for a commodity becomes illegal. We’ve seen food cart primacy (foodie hype, rodeos and other gimmicks) literally supplant the middle ground\u2014and important space\u2014of food workers and delivery person rights while at the far end of the agency spectrum, immigrants in Queens who depend on informal labor (selling food) as their sole income can have the product (and representation) of their labor literally destroyed. Food carts and other pop-up notions, of course, play into the speculative real estate (capitalist) force that influences many\u2014even well-meaning\u2014urban plans that give us the new green and pedestrian spaces in NYC\u2019s higher income zones (e.g. Madison Square Park, Prospect Park) where the food carts are allowed, stationed, taxed and begin to atrophy (because in effect they lose their original mobility\/flexibility when sequestered in these demarcated zones).<\/p>\n

{iii}<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll stop here without attempting to fully compare and contrast the urban nature and green spaces of NYC and S\u00e3o Paulo. There are many commonalities and many differences, which I look forward to discussing. In the mean time, here\u2019s a survey of projects\u2014old and new that I\u2019ve come across in my research:<\/p>\n

{Projects by and with Artists}<\/p>\n