ARCHIVE OF THE ECOLOGICAL FUTURE 2016

DATA CENTER FOR A DEMOCRATIC FLOATING FARM

A FLOATING FARM

In the summer of 2016, Swale launched at Concrete Plant Park in the South Bronx, one of the largest food deserts in the United States. Food deserts are a reality in many communities in New York City; as many as three million New Yorkers live in communities with limited access to places where they can get fresh produce. Swale began as an idea to advocate for food to be grown on some of the 30,000 acres of public land in New York City, through urban stewardship initiatives led by community partners in the South Bronx.

Mary Mattingly's Swale is a floating food forest built atop a barge that travels to piers in New York City, offering educational programming and welcoming visitors to harvest herbs, fruits and vegetables for free. In the summer of 2016, Delta_Ark and Biome Arts organized a large scale research-to-production experiment on board the ship, consisting of the construction a pavilion, an agricultural sensor system, a light-installation and an incubator for other artistic work.

THE MAP

A DATA THEATER

We hope to encourage New Yorkers to care for our common home and to address food as a commons in public space. Following the insights of Elinor Ostrom, Swale relies on the principle that commons can be sustainably managed where people know each other, trust each other, and work together in caring for a place. There is no limit in foraging on Swale. In fact when Swale launched, and there was not much ripe to pick, on some days we found more people bringing plants than taking them.  Swale is organized with the help of individuals, community groups, as well as city organizations in order to reinforce food and water as essential elements of a cooperatively stewarded commons.

The Greenhouse Theater, designed by commissioned architects Eternity Stew, was created in order to house the primary installation and other works for our event. The team built it together in upstate NY at a shipyard where Swale was originally leased.

THE ARCHIVE

Concerns with foraging on public land involve considering the health of the plants, and the landscape at large, as well as creating necessary signage to educate and protect foragers from potentially eating the wrong plants. On Swale, we believe that the benefits of free access to local greens, berries and herbs outweigh potential risks involved with foraging, and that these potential risks can all be mitigated by educational initiatives. As we near Swale’s third year, we plan to work alongside stewardship groups of public lands in order to mitigate the use of herbicides in parks, to increase the overall health of public parkland, and to continue to work with public institutions on signage for edible plants.

Inside the Greenhouse Theater, Delta_Ark and Biome arts build the primary installation: The Archive of the Ecological Future. The Archive has two sections. The Data Section contains a record of all data gathered at Swale during the summer of 2016; e.g., wind speed, wind direction, location, soil moisture, etc. The Entry section contains (a.) information on a plant grown on swale (including its edible and medicinal uses), (b.) paired with the name of an organization that participated in the project, along with (c.) a poetic text clipped from the website of that organization. Throughout the month-long symposium, the archive was available online and also on site, where it was projected into a column of hanging fabric within The Greenhouse Theater. The Archive served as the focal ‘data infrastructure’ that allowed participants to get a bird’s eye view of various aspects of Swale. Click on the image below to be brought to the archive’s main page and documentation.

agriculture CINEMA

Canopy Beach Plum, Black Chokeberry, Black Tupelo, Black willow, ‘Enterprise’ Apple, ‘Goldrush’ Apple, Fuyu Persimmon, Goji Berry, Hawthorn, Italian Alder, Newtown Pippin Apple (native to Queens NY!), Liberty Apple, ‘Northern Spy’ Apple, Northline Serviceberry, Pitch pine, Red Chokeberry, Sweetbay Magnolia

Shrub American Red Raspberry, Arkansas Blackberry, Blue Ridge Blueberry, Dogbane, Eastern Juniper, False Indigo, Flame Willow, Golden Curls Willow, Gooseberry, Missouri River Willow, Northern Highbush Blueberry, Pennsylvania Blackberry, Red Stem Dogwood, Rosemary, Sassafras, Triple Crown Blackberry, Winterberry

During the symposium, Delta_Ark and Biome arts hosted a film festival for environmental work that dealt with the themes of food scarcity and security. The lineup for the first event “Alt Future” is here. The lineup for the second event “Paper Forest” is here. The works exist permanently online at the two sites, linked above. This installation allowed Swale to be transformed into a learning environment beyond its original location; it allowed the participants to engage with similar issues in different locations and increased a sense of camaraderie with other activists groups engaged in similar struggles.

Symbiosis, sacra, flocking birds, verdant

Herbaceous Asparagus, American, Blackgrass, Black eyed Susan, Buck’s Horn Plantain, Bugleweed, Anise Hyssop, Aster (New England), Bee Balm, Black Eyed Susan, Borage, Comfrey, Dandelion, Daylily, Echinacea, Evening primrose, French Sorrel, Garlic Chives, Goldenrod, Ground Cherry, Hopi Red Dye Amaranth, Lavender, Lemon Balm, Lettuce, Lovage, Meadowsweet, Milkweed, Miners Lettuce, Oregano, Peppermint, Perpetual Swiss Chard, Red Mustard, Red Russian Kale, Roman Chamomile, Rosemallow, Scallion, Saltgrass, Saltmeadow rush, Sea pea, Shore little bluestem, Spotted Joe Pye Weed, Stinging Nettle, Swamp Goldenrod, Sylvetta Arugula, Tansy, Virginia mountain mint, White Avens, Wild leek, Whorled mountain mint, Yarrow

During the event, Delta_Ark and Biome Arts hosted a variety of artists that used the data-installation and the theater in order to develop their own works:

Symbiosis “In this site specific, multi-media, interactive installation, by Rebecca Uliasz, the symbiotic relationship becomes one of harmony between man, plant, and machine, which temporarily suspends the many contemporary fractures that exist in each of these connections. Facilitated and augmented by technology, the plant is able to “perform” by producing immersive and shifting audio and visuals in which the man, the user, is able to interact and effect with their own physical bodily gestures. The body of the user becomes the tool through which they shape the audio and visuals “produced” by the plant via body motion.”

Sacra “Sacra are currently gathering data to build The Temple of Taste and Remembrance, an interactive archive that attempts to collect and catalogue the relationship between eating and memory. As people explore the barge, we want to invite them to harvest things from the garden and bring them to us. We will ask them a series of questions about their associations/experiences eating what they've gathered and record their answers using audio and notecards. We will separate responses according to type of plant, so that as the day goes on participants will be able to access previous associations/experiences.”

Flocking Birds “Flocking Birds is an ongoing movement and art project on human migration and existence started by Hyojin Yoo and Nupur Mathur. The project's goals are to question the limits of human migration and our separation from the natural world by bringing immigrant communities together to make visible the bureaucratic, share the personal, reveal political histories and revisit our relationship to the earth. We do this by hosting immigration/migration parties that occur in private or public spaces through a word of mouth network nurtured by us and the people we are meeting along the way.”

Verdant “A chamber concert of new/experimental music presented by Biome Arts and Tenth Intervention, curated by Sally Bozzuto. The evening will feature works by Nathan Hall, Eve Beglarian, Sally Bozzuto, Dorian Wallace and Hajnal Pivnick featuring members of the Tenth Intervention Ensemble. The evening will also feature Data Bell, a sound installation by Brian House and Core 2.0, a multimedia installation by Biome Arts, both powered by weather data collected aboard Swale. Each musical selection was either commissioned for this event, or involves the idea of community, collaboration, sustainability, and/or our ecosystem.”

The Programmable eco commons

Ground Cover Creeping Thyme, Creeping raspberry, Golden oregano, Purslane, Strawberries, White Clover, Wild Low bush blueberry

Rhizosphere Adam’s yucca, Groundnut, Jerusalem Artichoke, Walking Onion, Wild Yam

Vertical Layer Clematis, Grapes, Hardy Kiwi, Hops, Scarlet runner beans

Swale was an open biosphere-like experiment in agricultural and community building. The infrastructural requirements were often exceedingly complex and often overwhelmed the small teams that were tasked to manage them. However, these small teams (not beholden to any governmental structure, per say) accomplished public scale projects that the city government may have found too risky to try to attempt, thus showing how a kind of ‘renegade architecture’ could work in partnership with citizens in general. This kind of space brought all sorts of people colliding into each other from different backgrounds and classes and allowed new friendships and connections to form; it created a new form of ‘participatory ownership,’ made material. The project also points to kind of mobile architectural or programmable city where the landscape can change to suit the needs of its inhabitants at different times. All of this points the way towards the democratic, smart, eco-city of the future, a future where citizens can reconfigure their city at will.