kulturlandschaften: honey breakfast

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.

28/07/2010

honey breakfast

Our collaborative garden workshop was introduced with a honey breakfast at Donne Nissà.

...with home-baked bread, and "Stadtbienenhonig" from Berlin. With the honey breakfast the idea of a bee economy was introduced to the urban garden. See also: http://www.stadtbienenhonig.com .

After breakfast we explored the plot for the garden and the adjacent neighborhood.

suggestion: we propose the honey breakfast as a regular open event such as every first Saturday of a month making it a recurrent ritual. The honey breakfast gives space for wishes and feedback; it enables common time spent to design the garden, distribute responsibilities, agree on maintenance schedules and regular opening hours for the urban garden, plan social gatherings such as garden parties, is a forum for democratic decision-making, and will create a community. The honey breakfast establishes best when members of the group rotationally host a breakfast at Donne Nissa or other spaces, where they send out invitations, make food, create a welcoming atmosphere. Newcomers can drop-in, and get to know other participants. The honey breakfast is announced in the local paper.