kulturlandschaften: 11 July, Sunday: garden party

kulturlandschaften

Kulturlandschaften was a participative urban gardening project by Meike Schalk & Erika Mayr together with Donne Nissà for Summer Drafts, in Bolzano, 3-11 July 2010.

Donne Nissà is a grassroots association of and for migrant women, http://www.nissa.bz.it , who engage in a number of activities such as giving legal advice, supporting women working in the care sector, running a kindergarten, and a number of cultural projects that deal with multiculturalism such as theater, literature, café, and course activities. Donne Nissà is based in the district of Don Bosco where they obtained the permission to re-cultivate a part of 1000 sqm of overgrown public land for community gardening, at Via Bari off Via Alessandria.

For more information on Don Bosco, see: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Bosco_(Bolzano)

Summer Drafts involves various migrant and civil society associations based in Bolzano. Every year a number of international guests, artists, activists, and theoreticians who work in a participatory way are invited to spend a period between 7-10 days to work in collaboration with one or more organizations around a set of issues that are identified through a common process, http://www.summerdrafts.org

Urban gardening is a way of caring for nature and communities. The reasons to start are as diverse as the people who have a passion for it. Gardening not only enables to grow and harvest own fruits and vegetables, it also brings individuals together to share knowledge, their products, tools, and work, and to enjoy. People involved in gardening often experience closer relationships to their surroundings when they grow, cook, and harvest their own food together. Growing food in the city gives back the responsibility for ground, nature, and production processes.

24/07/2010

11 July, Sunday: garden party

For the great opening of the urban garden, we prepared "trees" made from helium balloons symbolizing fruit trees that ought to grow here in the future offering shade and fruits to all the gardeners.

Despite the cloudy weather, many people came and brought fantastic homemade food and wine.
We even had two bands playing at the garden party.

The balloons were later released. They carried the message: "Join the urban garden!"

suggestion: beside collective practices of everyday life such as gardening, sharing spaces and regular educational activities - special events such as seasonal garden parties, performances, and common food experiences will publicize and inscribe the garden in the city.

Thank you to all participants gardening with us during hot summer days! Our deepest gratitude goes to Paolo Plothegher and Valeria Graziano of Summer Drafts for inviting us and supporting this project, and to Hilary Solly of Donne Nissà for our collaboration!

We wish you good luck with the urban garden!

Meike & Erika

Meike Schalk & Erika Mayr are both passionate about micro-urbanism and urban interventions. Meike holds a PhD in landscape architecture and teaches architecture and urban design at the School of Architecture, KTH in Stockholm. She is editor of SITEmagazine and one of the initiators of FATALE, a collective that pursues research and education within and through feminist architecture theory. Erika is a gardener and beekeeper. She participated in the competition Shrinking Cities together with the architect Stéphane Orsolini receiving the Holcim Regional Awards of North America in 2008. She is head of the Charlottenburg beekeeping club in Berlin and collaborates frequently with Finger, Franfurt. Her honey is "Stadtbienenhonig".