University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Sustainability through participation: public art projects by Fritz Haeg, Futurefarmers, and Fallen Fruit

(USC Thesis Other)

Sustainability through participation: public art projects by Fritz Haeg, Futurefarmers, and Fallen Fruit

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SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH PARTICIPATION:
PUBLIC ART PROJECTS BY FRITZ HAEG, FUTUREFARMERS, AND FALLEN FRUIT

By

Grace P. Dixon

__________________________________________________________________

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSKI SCHOOL OF ART AND DESIGN
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ART AND CURATORIAL PRACTICES IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE

May 13, 2016

Copyright 2016, Grace P. Dixon

!

Whether private or public, the world that begins where our skin ends provides a kind of
practice ground in which we develop the essential sense of relatedness that carries over into
our relatedness with other human beings.
- Sheila de Bretteville, “The Parlorization of Our Homes and Ourselves”

The corner was our Rock of Gibraltar, our Stonehenge, our Taj Mahal, our monument, our
testimonial to freedom, to peace and to love.
- The Last Poets sampled in “The Corner,” by Common ft. Kanye West

!
Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction 1

Historical Background 4

Terms in Use 11

Chapter 2: Fritz Haeg: Middle Class Domesticity vs. the Public Good 14

Chapter 3: Futurefarmers: Regeneration from Contamination 25

Chapter 4: Fallen Fruit: Leaving a Trail of Fruit Behind 32

Chapter 5: Conclusion 39

Bibliography 46

! 1
Chapter 1: Introduction

In her 2012 article “Ecological Art: A Call for Visionary Interventions in a Time of Crisis,”
Ruth Wallen states, “Ecosystems are often described as chaotic or complex. However, the
randomness of chaos can be perceived as organized patterns, known as strange attractors.
Ecoartists can play significant roles in identifying and exploring the implications of these
patterns.”
1

The artists’ task of identifying, exploring, translating, and sharing is especially crucial
when it comes to issues of the environment, because ecological systems, and our impact on them,
can be obscure and daunting territory for many. As Lucy Lippard writes in The Lure of Local,
“artists can make the connections visible,”
2
or the confusing and obscure more understandable.
The broader picture of overwhelmingly negative human impact on the environment is, however,
now common knowledge. Evidence of ecological degradation and the conflicting messages of
what we should do to help are commonplace in the media. The enormity of the crisis can be
paralyzing, leaving many people feeling like changes they make in their lives are too
insignificant to matter. Artworks that tackle environmental concerns are important because they
typically focus on one specific, digestible part of the problem, making it easier for spectators to
comprehend and thoughtfully consider.
Since the modern environmental movement became prominent in the US in the 1960s,
artists have sited environmental projects in the public realm, urging audiences to see their cities
in new ways, and to see the environment as a collective resource. As early as 1965, Alan Sonfist
proposed Time Landscape (1978-present) to the city of New York. This 25’ by 40’ foot
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1
Ruth Wallen, “Ecological Art: A Call for Visionary Intervention in a Time of Crisis,” Leonardo 45, no.
3 (2012): 234-242.
2
Lucy R. Lippard, The Lure of the Local: Sense of Place in a Multicentered Society (New York: The
New Press, 1997),19.
! 2
rectangular plot of forest in Greenwich Village represents the pre-colonial landscape of the area
that existed before Dutch settlers arrived. Time Landscape is a poignant reminder of our impact
on the environment, and Sonfist’s message is clear because of the break he created in the urban
fabric of New York City. Artists have used this model ever since, interrupting what is expected
in the public sphere to question cultural notions of spatial organization, use of resources, and the
separation of the urban and the natural. The ways in which the artists included in this thesis use
public space is a key element of the impact of their work.
This thesis will look in-depth at three recent case studies of contemporary artists who
tackle environmental issues through public projects. I have chosen these three artists/collectives
because they each transform urban spaces in different ways; they create tools that empower
different publics to shape the environments they live in, setting communities on a path to
becoming more adaptive and sustainable. Los Angeles-based artist and architect Fritz Haeg
transformed the front lawns of private homes into seasonal edible gardens in his eight-year
project, Edible Estates (2005-2013). These permanent revisions of the ubiquitous front lawn
became vital parts of the communities where they are located, forcing neighbors to consider the
impact, benefits, and pitfalls of the grass they maintain. Futurefarmers is a US/E.U. collective,
founded by Amy Franceschini with Michael Swaine, Stijn Schiffeleers, Lode Vranken, Anya
Kamenskaya, and Dan Allende. Through invention, performance, research, exhibition, and
community workshops, Futurefarmers explore alternative, sustainable systems. In 2011, using an
exchange platform to gather information about the levels of contamination in Philadelphia soil,
Futurefarmers created the Soil Kitchen (2011). This temporary public space became a site of
gathering, learning, and non-monetary exchange. Fallen Fruit, a Los Angeles-based collaborative
duo with artists David Burns and Austin Young, plants and maps fruit trees through their Urban
! 3
Fruit Trails (2004-present), Public Fruit Maps (2004-present), and other community-based
initiatives. Burns and Young’s projects examine urban space, access to healthy food, and agency
in shaping our environment.
Fritz Haeg, Amy Francheschini, and David Burns and Austin Young all tackle
environmental issues through public projects as a means of fostering participation. In order for
cities to become more sustainable, fundamental shifts need to take place. These artists work
through public participatory models to encourage communities—whether that means neighbors,
students, or art workers—to work together to shift towards more sustainable ways. Direct
interaction with different communities, altering or re-contextualizing public space, and blurring
the separation between urban/nature and art/life are impulses that extend from Land/Earth Art as
well as Relational Aesthetics and Social Practice.
Haeg, Futurefarmers and Fallen Fruits’ work exemplifies the fact that making life in cities
more sustainable comes in many forms. These projects represent a range of interventions in
different types of spaces, such as private and public spaces, the museum space, spaces utilized by
individuals and those maintained communally. The case studies also represent a range of
organizational models—Soil Kitchen was sponsored by the city of Philadelphia, while Fallen
Fruit plants fruit trees in guerilla and sanctioned ways. I also chose Haeg, Fallen Fruit, and
Futurefarmers to show that projects organized by an individual artist can be just as effective as
an intervention organized by a group. While there are differences in the organizational structure
and methods used by Fritz Haeg, Fallen Fruit, and Futurefarmers, they all share a commitment to
reinventing urban spaces, strengthening public space, enhancing collectivity, and showing
participants they have the power to shape their own environment.

! 4
Historical Background

Before discussing the case studies, I will sketch out a relevant chronology of past projects
that alter or complicate urban space in some way, revealing, questioning, or problematizing an
aspect of our cultural relationship with the environment. The artists mentioned here belong to
different categories within the art historical chronology of the 20
th
century, such as
Conceptualism, Land/Earth Art and Institutional Critique. They are not all associated with
environmentalism within art historical discourse. However, I would like to reframe these projects
to focus on how they critique traditional urbanism, and imagine new ways of seeing our
relationship with the environment and the resources we use. The following examples are helpful
in contextualizing my discussion of Haeg, Futurefarmers, and Fallen Fruit because they create a
framework for considering the ways artists have made visible our cultural relationship with
urban space, and in turn, our impact on the larger environment.
In the 1970s, Bonnie Sherk and Gordon Matta-Clark both worked with urban space in
ways that reconsidered the possibilities of unused, wasted spaces. While they worked on
opposite sides of the country, in San Francisco and New York respectively, both Sherk and
Matta-Clark engaged with the urban environment conceptually and physically. For example, in
1974 Sherk started her decade-long project The Farm (1974-84), in which she converted seven
acres of traffic islands and neglected spaces under freeways into gardens around San Francisco.
Also in the mid-1970s, Matta-Clarke purchased tiny portions of land in Queens to comment on
“the tyranny of urban enclosure.”
3
Matta-Clarke’s Fake Estates (1974) emphasized, and devised
to use, alleys, park-strips—virtually ignored spaces. Highlighting wasted spaces, such as an alley
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
3
Nancy Spector, “Reality Properties: Fake Estates, Little Alley Block 2497, Lot 42,” Guggenheim,
accessed Jan. 3, 2016, http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online /artwork/5210.
! 5
or space under a freeway, is an environmentalist endeavor, because it begs the question of
whether or not we are using space effectively. Matta-Clarke’s project points out how little urban
space is left undefined; and since spaces are typically defined as either commercial or residential,
what is left for collectivity and experimentation?
In 1977, Mierle Laderman Ukeles began interviewing New York City sanitation workers,
which evolved into Touch Sanitation (1978-1984). For this project she shook hands and
personally thanked every sanitation worker employed by the New York City Department of
Sanitation. Touch Sanitation made visible a system urban society tries to hide—waste disposal.
Ukeles’ performative gesture brought attention to a lucrative profession everyone relies on yet
simultaneously looks down upon. Considering processes of waste disposal forces us to consider
the whole life cycle of the products and materials we use, a dire environmental issue. Ukeles’
work is aligned with Institutional Critique; however, Touch Sanitation is also a powerful
example of creating visibility for an environmental issue that is difficult to comprehend because
of its erasure from urban life.
Another project that recasts an overlooked element of urban space is Agnes Denes’
Wheatfield – A Confrontation: Battery Park Landfill, Downtown Manhattan (1982) in which she
planted two acres of wheat in Battery Park landfill. The field’s proximity to Wall Street calls
attention to cultural priorities regarding land use and investment. Denes’ revision of urban space
confuses the idea of what is “urban” and what is “rural,” revealing how larger cultural priorities
relate to these categories.
4

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4
The field’s proximity to Wall Street was also meant to comment on the fact that wheat was being traded
as a commodity while people starve all over the world. The harvested wheat from the field became part of
an exhibition called The International Art Show for the End of World Hunger, organized by the
Minnesota Museum of Art. This project proves that a gesture of placing the unexpected in urban space
can be a powerful political statement. As Denes describes, “Wheatfield was a symbol, a universal concept;
it represented food, energy, commerce, world trade and economics. It referred to mismanagement, waste
! 6
Since 1970, Helen and Newton Harrison have been mapping, cataloguing, researching, and
designing exhibitions of their findings and proposals for ecological preservation in countries all
over the world. In some cases they have directly affected policy, such as in their project A Vision
for the Green Heart of Holland (1984) in which they advocated for protecting a section of land
in the middle of the country from development. The Green Heart forms a central open space
between three Dutch cities, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. The Harrisons examined the
history and cultural significance of the space, producing a series of maps that proposed new
boundaries and ways to consider the space. In 2005, the Final Report for Sustainable Open
Space in North West Europe listed the Green Heart of Holland as one of the regions open spaces
to be protected.
5

In addition to their localized research and map-based projects, the Harrisons have also
completed site-specific permanent installations that educate viewers about the local environment.
The Harrisons describe their piece California Wash (1996) as a “narrative work of landscape
sculpture,” that is a “memorial to the vanishing ecology of the area.”
6
This large-scale piece
creates a path down a Santa Monica street towards the ocean, telling the story of the ecosystem
that existed before the urbanization of the area. Bronze plaques of native animals and plants are
inlaid within colored concrete, shells, and other flattened materials in the sidewalk. It is a public
artwork layered with meaning: the more one examines it the more they learn. It is interactive yet
subtle, being simply part of the ground you walk on.

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world hunger and ecological concerns.” See Agnes Denes, “Works,” Agnes Denes, accessed Jan. 15,
2016, http://www.agnesdenesstudio.com/works7.html.
5
Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison, “A Vision for the Green Heart of Holland, 1984,” The
Harrison Studio, accessed Dec. 15, 2015, http://theharrisonstudio.net/?page_id=534.
6
Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison, “California Wash, 1996,” The Harrison Studio, accessed
Dec. 15, 2015, http://theharrisonstudio.net/?page_id=301.
! 7
Mel Chin, another major figure in environmental art, makes interdisciplinary work and also
explores themes beyond ecology. Chin’s ongoing project Revival Field (1991-present) started
when he installed a test site of hyperaccumulator plants in Pig’s Eye Landfill in St. Paul,
Minnesota. Different kinds of plants are hyperaccumulators, but they are so named because they
absorb the heavy metals found in soil as a result of landfill contamination. It was Chin’s project
that proved the viability of using hyperaccumulators to reverse soil contamination to the
scientific community. Following Hurricane Katrina, Chin traveled to New Orleans to investigate
the metal composites found throughout the soil there. In the resulting, multi-part project,
Operation Paydirt/Fundred Dollar Bill Project (2006-present), Chin worked with scientists and
schoolchildren on a campaign to raise awareness about childhood lead poisoning and soil
remediation. This project is long-term and far-reaching: because one of the effects of lead
poisoning in children is violent behavior into adulthood, Chin hopes the eradication of lead from
the soil in New Orleans will ultimately reduce violent crime in the city.
7

The other artistic genre to consider as a point of departure when thinking about the projects
discussed in this thesis is Social Practice. The artists associated with this way of working
expanded the notion of audience participation and collaboration in the 1990s and 2000s. Social
Practice art is linked with direct community involvement, and often takes a more activist
approach to participation. The works of artists such as Suzanne Lacy
8
, Paul Ramirez Jonas
9
, and
Jon Rubin
10
often blend so fully with social situations that they may not register as art for an
unsuspecting participant or observer. This is because of how and where these projects are staged,
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
7
Carol Strickland, “Getting the Lead Out: Mel Chin,” Art in America, April 1, 2014,
http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/interviews/getting-the-lead-out-mel-chin/. !
8
Suzanne Lacy, “Recent Works,” Suzanne Lacy, accessed March 16, 2016,
http://www.suzannelacy.com/recent-works/.
9
Paul Ramirez Jonas, “Paul Ramirez Jonas,” accessed March 16, 2016,
http://www.paulramirezjonas.com/selected/new_index.php#20&31_2010.
10
Jon Rubin, “Conflict Kitchen,” accessed March 16, 2016, http://www.jonrubin.net/#/test-page/.
! 8
and the emphasis on integration with the community to explore the social issue at hand. Artist
and theorist Pablo Helguera describes this characteristic in his book Education for Socially
Engaged Art (SEA). Helguera writes:
One factor of SEA that must be considered is its expansion to include participants from
outside the regular circles of art and the art world. Most historical participatory art… has
been staged within the confines of an art environment, be it a gallery, museum, or event to
which visitors arrive predisposed to have an art experience or already belonging to a set of
values and interests that connect them to art.
11

The goal of accessing publics outside the art world is extremely important in understanding the
impact of this type of artistic practice.
SEA projects are typically driven by a conceptual focus or question the artist seeks to
explore, which is approached though many forms, such as workshops, sculptures, murals,
lectures, conversations, etc. As Helguera describes, “SEA is a hybrid, multi-disciplinary activity
that exists somewhere between art and non-art, and its state may be permanently unresolved.
SEA depends on actual—not imagined or hypothetical—social action.”
12
Most SEA projects
create situations that foster critical conversation between participants, the larger public, and the
artist. The interaction between the artist and the public is focused and collaborative, with the
artist on equal footing with the public. Naturally the specifics of context are key, whether that
context is a gallery or a public park. As critic and art historian Claire Bishop describes, “The
implication is that this work inverses the goals of Greenbergian modernism. Rather than a
discrete, portable, autonomous work of art that transcends its context, relational art is entirely
beholden to the contingencies of its environment and audience.”
13

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11
Pablo Helguera, Education for Socially Engaged Art: A Materials and Techniques Handbook (New
York: Jorge Pinto Books, 2011), 12.!
12
Ibid., 8.
13
Claire Bishop, “Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics,” October 110 (Autumn 2004): 54.
! 9
The public participatory approach in realizing SEA projects connects to the ways in which
Fritz Haeg, Futurefarmers, and Fallen Fruit work with different publics. While the focus in the
three artists’/groups’ work is on the interactions that take place at a specific time and place, these
artists also create objects and utilize documentation to extend the reach of their projects. In the
gallery and museum context, images, ephemera, designed objects, and conceptually related art
pieces are used to further explore the environmental concerns of the artist, and educate viewers
about the work that is done outside of the gallery space. Documentation is displayed on each
artist/group’s website to explain to new viewers the scope of the project. As Helguera notes,
“SEA usually has an overt agenda, but its emphasis is less on the act of protest than on becoming
a platform or a network for the participation of others, so that the effects of the project may
outlast its ephemeral presentation.”
14
Haeg, Futurefarmers, and Fallen Fruit use participatory
methods to create a platform for exchange which has an impact on those that are able to
participate at the time, and they also use other forms like video documentation or interactive
tools that can be used on one’s own to extend beyond the initial interaction.
The above examples of past artworks that fall under the categories of Earth/Land Art,
Institutional Critique, Relational Aesthetics, and Social Practice create a framework to
contextualize the thematic content and public participatory strategies employed by Fritz Haeg,
Fallen Fruit, and Futurefarmers. The continued impact of the early environmental projects
described above lies in the reframing of spaces that have pre-prescribed functions—a waste
management facility, open space slotted to be built up, an alley in Queens. The artists I have
mentioned show that we can, and should, reconsider the space we inhabit, and the ways we
collaborate with those around us. While working as a community and enhancing public spaces
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
14
Helguera, Education for Socially Engaged Art, 12.
! 10
can seem utopian, challenging the built environment is just as politically-charged and subversive
as it is empowering. For the most part, the built environment, whether that means a city,
community, or house, is something we have inherited. It can seem unchangeable, yet part of the
reason the environmental crisis has become so dire is because of our collective failure to revise
unsustainable systems. The artists projects discussed in this thesis prove that new sustainable
systems that govern the ways we live can come from an individual or grassroots effort.

! 11
Terms in Use

Some of the terms I am using may mean different things to different people, and it is worth
providing some definitions. Terms such as environment, space, urban, and public refer to broad
concepts. When using the word “environment” or “space” herein, I am talking about the world
around us, which can be urban, rural, domestic, etc. The environment is a fluid space, it does not
start or stop when the city ends and the suburb begins, or when the suburb ends and the corn field
begins. Instead, it refers to the impact human society has on the planet. My notion of the
environment comes from William Cronon, an American environmental historian who resists the
traditional dichotomy of culture and nature.
15
Cronon asserts that separating urban and rural,
manmade and natural, is problematic because it creates an image of nature as a pristine ideal
outside of all human intervention. However, untouched nature like this no longer exists, and to
pretend that it does threatens to remove responsibility from urban life. Instead, Cronon advocates
for seeing nature all around regardless of where you live. Nature can be the park strip on your
sidewalk or the storm drain that leads to the ocean. Seeing nature everywhere makes humans
responsible for every action and how it effects the environment.
16

It is also helpful to remember that environmentalism differs from ecology. The artists
discussed here are not scientists; however, they may work with scientists on certain projects.
They should be viewed more as curious problem-solvers. In her book EnvironMentalities Linda
Weintraub creates a system for categorizing environmental artwork. She separates artists into
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15
William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness, or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,” in Uncommon
Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, ed. William Cronon (New York: W. W. Norton & Co.,
1995), 69-90.
16
Ibid.
! 12
different categories, such as “designers,” “activators,” “philosophers,” and “dramatizers.”
17

Weintraub writes, “Environmentalists examine human lifestyles and their impacts upon current
and future populations of all the planet’s life-forms. They differ from ecologists, who utilize the
scientific method and rely upon verifiable data… Environmentalists are well-meaning
individuals who share a desire for long-term health of the earth’s living systems.”
18
The artists
discussed here may use verifiable data in their projects, but their primary goal is not to contribute
to the discipline of science. It is to have an impact on the people that encounter the project.
It is also worth mentioning that this thesis only considers environmental issues as they
relate to people living in denser cities that have been constructed for them—structures that have
been in place for decades that dictate urban life. The artists discussed here live in cities in the
US, and address issues in their work that arise in their urban communities. When I discuss public
space I am referring to spaces that are accessible without paying for access. The notion of
publicness is complicated here because the projects I discuss take place on a combination of
private and public land. In the case of Fritz Haeg, the project even becomes part of someone’s
home. However, a pedestrian can walk up to a private front lawn, or up to a tree growing on the
park-strip, without paying, or even asking for permission. In this way the artist is encouraging
viewers to rethink the boundaries of public and private.
Like many SEA artists, Haeg, Futurefarmers, and Fallen Fruit’s work is usually discussed
in terms of how it engages the public and/or how it constitutes a new form of public art. In my
analysis I wish to take the concepts of collaboration and publicness a step further, and examine
exactly how the artists transform cultural conceptions of urban space. For example, instead of
simply looking at Fallen Fruit’s collaboration with different organizations in designing public
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
17
Linda Weintraub, EnvironMentalities: Twenty-Two Approaches to Eco-Art (Rhinebeck: ArtNow
Publications, 2007). !
18
Ibid., ix. !
! 13
programs, and acknowledging what an innovative activity planting fruit is, I will analyze how the
conditions for these activities create a newfound awareness among the participants, and those
that learn about the work, of how individuals can shape the cities in which they live to make
them more sustainable.

! 14
Chapter 2: Fritz Haeg: Middle Class Domesticity vs. The Public Good

In 2000, Fritz Haeg moved from New York City, where he worked as an architect, to Los
Angeles, to pursue his own artistic practice. Since shifting career focus, Haeg has done a few
independent architectural commissions throughout Los Angeles, but focuses primarily on the
smaller scale elements that shape our lives. Whether he is teaching, building a garden on top of
an apartment building, or remodeling a mid-century home, Haeg continues to apply his training
as an architect to his projects, stating, "all the projects I do are rooted in the way that an architect
thinks and works … [h]ow we live and the spaces we make for ourselves.”
19
His work revolves
around creating and understanding spaces of comfort, domesticity, and the ways we create a
sense of home. Haeg creates spaces of comfort in museums, spaces for animals in cities, and he
examines how we can use resources responsibly and creatively. In recent projects he has taken
simple ideas for living more sustainably, and applied them in different locations around the
world.
Throughout the course of executing his multi-part project Edible Estates (2005-2013),
Haeg used the hybrid skills of an artist, architect, and environmentalist. This fusion of
perspectives led him to formulate a relatively accessible, low-cost way to make our cities and
suburbs more sustainable. The solution of replacing grass with food-bearing plants updates an
antiquated architectural trope of the American landscape—the front lawn—reinventing the space
to better serve the needs of contemporary life. Haeg's critical, research-based approach,
considering the needs of a whole community reflects the approach of an artist. Meanwhile, the
direct remaking of a paradigmatic space reflects the approach of an architect. The underlying
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19
Kate Burt, “The Urban Farmer,” Independent (London, England), June 1, 2008.
! 15
optimism to change the way families use their homes reflect the values of an environmentalist. In
her book EnvironMentalities Linda Weintraub deems Haeg a “regenerationist,” which she
describes as someone who works to rehabilitate, “disturbed biomes where plant and animal life
has declined and living systems have become degraded. They attempt to reestablish biotic
diversity that has been compromised by the introduction of non-native species, soil depletion,
clear-cutting, mining, overgrazing, toxic spills, etc.”
20
Haeg uses his hybrid skills as an artist,
architect, and environmentalist to regenerate the lawn, replacing the stagnant lawn with
biodiversity and food production.
To execute each iteration of Edible Estates, Haeg works collaboratively with homeowners,
or a community, to turn front lawns into edible gardens. Of the 15 completed Edible Estates,
most are sited throughout the US with a few examples in Europe and one in Israel.
21
Haeg
constructs the gardens with the family or organization that owns the property where the lawn is
located, with additional help from volunteers. Most of the Edible Estates have transformed the
lawns of private homes; however, some have been planted on the sites of museums, schools or
community centers. Haeg gets to know the inhabitants of each location to determine what
regional plants they would use, either for cooking, medicine, or for other household purposes.
The costs for building a garden and maintaining it for the first year are typically covered by a
local arts institution. A few environmental and gardening organizations have also contributed
donations.
22
It was in the geographical center of the US, Salina, Kansas, that Haeg launched the
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20
Weintraub, EnvironMentalities, 110.
21
Fritz Haeg, “Edible Estates” Fritz Haeg, accessed October 15, 2015,
http://www.fritzhaeg.com/garden/initiatives/edibleestates/main.html.
22
Gardeners Supply Company was the sponsor for the Edible Estate in New Jersey. Fritz Haeg, “Edible
Estates regional prototype garden #3: Maplewood, New Jersey,” Fritz Haeg, accessed October 15, 2015,
http://www.fritzhaeg.com/garden/initiatives/edibleestates/nyc-suburbs.html.
! 16
project, his “attack on the front lawn.”
23
Installed in the yard of Stan and Priti Cox, a scientist
and artist respectively, with the help of the Salina Art Center, this garden was Haeg’s first
“regional prototype.”
24

Many artists have used gardens as a medium, bringing the cultivation of food into a space
of aesthetic and cultural consideration.
25
Haeg’s project is unique because he uses gardening as a
means of transforming a historically private, individualized space, the single-family home, into a
public community space. The front garden is made public through signage that invites passersby
in, through bringing the family outdoors, into a space where they can interact with strangers, and
through integrating a seating area in each garden. I will expand upon these elements more later
on. The project is also opened up to the public by Haeg’s decision to label the iterations of
Edible Estates as prototypes–– a model, intended to be reproduced and improved, proving that
Haeg intends the project to be a guide for anyone to implement independent of Haeg. The Edible
Estates are not performances or discrete events; they are a practical resource meant to be shared
with the community/public, and meant to continue thriving after Haeg has left the site. Signs are
installed in front of each lawn, alerting passersby of the larger project, and encouraging them to
stop and engage with the garden and its owners. Each garden is outfitted with plants that will
thrive in that area seasonally, and lists of the plants in each garden are available on Haeg’s
website. In the Edible Estates book, Haeg also includes instructions for building your own edible
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23
Friz Haeg, Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn, A Project by Fritz Haeg, ed. Diana Murphy (New
York: Metropolis Books, 2010).
24
“Edible Estates.” !
25
Artists have used gardening as their primary medium, while others have used plants intermittently in
their practice for decades. Bonnie Sherk, as previously mentioned, planted gardens in the 1970s, Alan
Sonfist created a forest in Manhattan in Time Landscape (1978-1979), Vito Acconci created a temporary
garden as public art in Addition to Metrotech Gardens (1996), while Nancy Klehm has been integrating
horticulture into workshops and public projects in Chicago for years. Many contemporary West Coast
artists use gardening as a discursive medium, including Ron Finley, Lauren Bon along with many other
artists, designers, and organizations that produce public gardens.
! 17
garden. The tools are there to spread the word, and encourage more homeowners to replace their
lawns with food.
26

The effort to localize food production is a goal that most environmentalists share. When
describing the irony of the unused lawn when our food travels great distances to reach grocery
store shelves, Haeg states, “This detachment from the source of our food breeds a careless
attitude toward our role as custodians of the land that feeds us.”
27
He saw an opportunity in the
front lawn as a mass of underutilized space, and started questioning this paradigmatic symbol of
middle-upper class American life. As Haeg describes in the first chapter of Edible Estates:
Today’s lawn has become the default surface for any defensible private space… In the
United States we plant more grass than any other crop: currently lawns cover more than
thirty million acres. Given the way we lavish precious resources on it and put it everywhere
that humans go, aliens landing in any American city today would assume that grass must
be the most precious earthly substance of all.
28

Yet, sadly, grass is essentially wasted space. It yields no food, power, or other useful materials; it
is an aesthetic status-symbol. Haeg also points out that the uniformity of the lawn is a massive
missed opportunity to reflect different cultural identities. As he wrote in an article discussing the
impact of the Obama’s planting a garden at the White House, “The uniform lawns surrounding
our homes all deny our diverse climates and cultures.”
29
Since the lawn is a space found across
cultures and economic classes throughout the United States, there is huge potential for not only
replicating the edible garden on large suburban lawns, but also on small plots shared by renters,
and on park strips—anywhere grass is found.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
26
Haeg, Edible Estates. !
27
Ibid., 21.!
28
Ibid., 20.
29
Fritz Haeg, “Why the White House garden matters,” Guardian, March 25, 2009, accessed Jan. 5, 2016,
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/mar/25/white-house-vegetable-garden-
lawns. !
! 18
During World War II, food shortages required families to grow their own produce. In the
post-war period, however, the lawn became popular as part of the American single-family home:
the grassy lawn became a response to that previous period of struggle, a symbol of prosperity,
showing that America had entered a new period of surplus. Lindsay Naylor describes the cultural
significance of the front lawn saying, “As the lawn became the culturally defined landscape of
‘home’ for the American soldier, the middle-class homeowner’s victory garden was relegated to
a corner.”
30
Once the lawn became a symbol of American middle-class normalcy, the garden had
to be hidden in the backyard, or disposed of altogether, because it disrupted the image of ease
and modern convenience. One of Naylor’s summarizing points about the historical significance
of the front lawn is, “the widespread promotion of vegetable gardens has been largely confined
to periods of crisis.”
31
This history is important in understanding why the lawn has endured as a
domestic norm until today. Because of its patriotic significance in “the neighborhood
imaginary,”
32
as Naylor refers to it, Haeg’s task of updating the front lawn takes on added
political significance. It becomes a subversive gesture because it upends historical notions of
middle class normalcy and rejects the post-war symbolism of leisure that the lawn represented,
favoring a more active and practical use of the space.
Of course, the norm of maintaining a lush green lawn was formulated before we were
aware of how limited water resources would become, and how our soil would suffer from the
pervasive planting of monocultures instead of maintaining biodiversity. Haeg describes the full
impact grass has on the environment, saying:
The lawn devours resources while it pollutes. It is maniacally groomed with mowers and
trimmers powered by the two-stroke motors that are responsible for much of our
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
30
Lindsay Naylor, “Hired gardens and the question of transgression: lawns, food gardens and the business
of ‘alternative’ food practice,” Cultural Geographies 19, no. 4 (2012): 487.
31
Ibid., 488.
32
Ibid., 485.
! 19
greenhouse gas emissions. Hydrocarbons from the mowers react with nitrogen oxides in
the presence of sunlight to produce ozone. To eradicate invading plants the lawn is
drugged with pesticides and herbicides, which are then washed into our water supply with
sprinklers and hoses, dumping our increasingly rare fresh drinking resource down the
gutter.
33

We now know the extent to which the front lawn has become an outdated system. At a time
when urban/suburban space and water are both precious resources, the front lawn wastes space
and resources. Half of the earth’s population already lives in urban areas (which is expected to
increase to 66% by 2050),
34
leading planners and architects to focus on urban “in-fill” to meet
this need. Also, areas such as Los Angeles are still in the midst of the worst drought on record, so
the time has come to make drastic changes in the way we use space. Edible Estates creates a
model for using space more efficiently and sustainably. If all of the front lawns in the US were
turned into seasonal gardens we would not only decrease our water use, we would also be able to
feed whole communities with pure and healthy foods.
Not only does the transformation of the front lawn break from traditional cultural values of
patriotism, it also disrupts a certain aesthetic uniformity that many people like in residential
areas. The typical lawn is publically visible, despite the fact that it is technically located on
private property. The ambiguity over whether the lawn is private or public is evident in the
testimonies of families that volunteered their lawns, which are recorded on Haeg’s website and
to a further extent in the book. Michael and Jennifer Foti’s house, located in Lakewood,
California, became the site of the second Edible Estate. Haeg reprints part of Michael’s
gardening blog on the page for their estate. Michael describes Haeg’s project, saying, “This is an
exercise in thinking differently about that big flat space in front of our house. Is there any value
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
33
Haeg, Edible Estates, 21.
34
“World’s population increasingly urban with more than half living in urban areas,” United Nations
Department of Economic and Social Affairs, last modified July 10, 2014,
https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-urbanization-prospects.html.
! 20
in that? We'll see. Why is the lawn so ubiquitous? Is there something about modern life that
precludes other options? Are our lives too busy? Are our communities so degraded that we must
strip our most public of private spaces down to the bare minimum?”
35
Michael describes that he
was already a gardener, tending a small fruit and vegetable garden in the Foti’s backyard.
However, he was hesitant to tackle the front yard because he was concerned about what the
neighbors would think, and if anyone would steal the accessible produce. In another section of
his blog, Michael states:
We’re a pretty average family, in a pretty average neighborhood. If we can make it work,
anybody can. If we can’t, then this project will help identify what I would say are real
flaws in our society. I think everybody should be able to grow at least some of their own
food. Everybody should be able to create something of beauty in full view of the world. I
want to see a more humane interface between public and private space. I want to engage
the world, not turn inward.
36

The Foti’s were acutely aware that the transformation of their lawn would have an impact on
their entire community, that it would be visible, semi-public, and set an example.
The publicness of the typical front lawn was a major reason why Haeg focused on it as a
space to transform. As he stated in one interview, “It’s about what happens on that square of land
between the public street and the private house. It's about social engagement. I wanted to get
away from the idea of home as an obsessive isolating cocoon.”
37
When Haeg looks for a property
to work with, he considers the visibility, public access, and how a garden will disrupt the
expected cityscape of the area. “Prototype garden locations are selected for maximum impact and
influence,” Haeg explains, “We want to plant Edible Estates where they are least likely to exist
otherwise and where they will provide a vivid contrast with the surrounding landscapes of
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
35
Fritz Haeg, “Edible Estates regional prototype garden #2: Los Angeles, California,” Fritz Haeg,
accessed Dec. 20, 2015. http://www.fritzhaeg.com/garden/initiatives/edibleestates/losangeles.html.
36
Ibid.
37
Patricia Leigh Brown, “Redefining American Beauty, by the Yard,” New York Times, July 13, 2006,
page 1.
! 21
suburban lawns or inner-city concrete.”
38

These quotations remind us that Edible Estates are also public artworks, and they need
visibility to initiate dialogue and create a new space of collaboration and reflection about the
issues of domestic space and use of resources that arise. Effective public art disrupts the ordinary
cityscape with something that is thought-provoking. The signs that are placed in front of each
lawn/garden draw in the public, and initiate conversation between the homeowners and
passersby, upon which food can be shared. As Michael Foti describes in his blog, he tries to
make sure that every visitor of the garden leaves with part of the harvest:
Without a doubt, the very best thing to come out of our participation in the Edible Estates
project has been the opportunity to meet so many nice people. From all the volunteers
who came to help plant the garden, to neighbors from surrounding community, to the
folks who read about the project in the paper and then made the trip out to see the garden
in person, we’ve had a steady stream of visitors for the last two months… We’ve tried not
to let anybody leave without taking some of our harvest with them, even if it’s just a few
tomatoes. It’s very gratifying to think about how many people are getting to enjoy “our”
vegetables. It’s kind of amazing to me how many people this garden has touched, even if
only in a small way.
39

This process of teaching people in the community about the garden, and sharing the food, is what
will inspire other residents of the region to do the same with their lawns. The lawn is a space that
was always visible yet rarely activated. When one of these families agrees to transform their
lawn into an Edible Estate, they are also signing up for a lot of work. Not only will the neighbors
see the landscaping, but they will see their neighbor working in the garden every day. The garden
brings the family members outside of their house more often, creating opportunities to talk with
their neighbors. The stark difference between the traditional unpeopled lawn and the edible lawn
is that the latter benefits the whole community, not just a single family. The interactivity that
results from the visibility of the front lawn is key in the success of the Edible Estates prototypes.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
38
Haeg, Edible Estates, 58.
39
“Edible Estates regional prototype garden #2: Los Angeles, California.”
! 22
In addition to the signs affixed to each Edible Estate, Haeg also typically landscapes a
small gathering space within each lawn. This usually takes the form of a few tree stumps or a
bench demarcating a space for people to sit. By creating this space for discussion within the
garden, he deliberately connects the Edible Estate to the values of conviviality and hospitality
associated with Relational Aesthetics. Bishop describes the social spaces that are created through
relational artwork, saying, “rather than a one-to-one relationship between work of art and viewer,
relational art sets up situations in which viewers are not just addressed as a collective, social
entity, but are actually given the wherewithal to create a community, however temporary or
utopian this may be.”
40

In terms of creating a space for the possibility of sustained community engagement, Haeg’s
choice of using the front lawn is significant. On the one hand, making the front lawn the site for
Edible Estates is rather exclusionary because having a traditional front lawn necessitates enough
wealth to be able to afford a single-family home. On the other hand, the choice of the front lawn
is strategic, not only for the historical reasons already discussed, but because the garden and
gathering space can be permanent. Haeg builds the gardens with the families, and helps monitor
them for the first year, but after that, Haeg moves on to the next prototype. Each family can
maintain the social space that is created through the project, making it permanent. While
transforming a front lawn into a permanent community space is definitely still utopian, the
Edible Estates exemplify a certain balance of utopianism and pragmatism.
In 2013, Haeg participated in a residency program and exhibition, Fritz Haeg: At Home in
the City at the Walker Art Center.
41
The project consisted of three different parts. First, Haeg
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
40
Bishop, “Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics,” 54.
41
Fritz Haeg, Fritz Haeg: At Home in the City, on view at the Walker Art Center, August 8
th
through
November 24
th
, 2013, accessed Dec. 15, 2015, http://www.walkerart.org/channel/2013/fritz-haeg-at-
home-in-the-city.
! 23
installed the final Edible Estate in the front lawn of the Schoenherr family’s home in a suburb
outside of the Twin Cities. Next, he produced Foraging Circle in the Minneapolis Sculpture
Garden, where visitors were encouraged to forage and pick the blooming plants and herbs.
Finally, in the Walker’s galleries, Haeg created an installation with his Domestic Integrities Rug,
a massive rug of crocheted recycled fabric that grew through volunteers and visitor participation
over the course of the exhibition. Since he made similar rugs in different locations before, the
exhibition distilled the full breadth of Haeg’s work. Each day it was open, Haeg would display
plants from the garden or other creations derived from the natural resources around the Walker.
Fritz Haeg: At Home in the City revolved around the following question: how we can use
resources found around us to make ourselves at home?
42
This is an important question because as
Haeg puts it, “Home is the first place where most people can affect immediate change.”
43

Creating a space of domesticity and comfort in the gallery space is similar to making the lawn a
community garden: it opens something that is generally considered private and makes it public.
This blurring of spatial categories is productive because it examines the norms and histories that
constitute these spaces in the first place. It widens the scope of the project, and frames it as a
model, just as the Edible Estates are “regional prototypes,” meant to be duplicated. Rethinking
these definitions and traditional boundaries between spatial functions is the first step in making
our lives more sustainable. Just as planners and architects talk about “mixed-use” spaces that can
make urban spaces more lively and diversified, Haeg asks his audience to consider the hybrid
uses of the home and its resources. As Haeg describes in an interview about the Foraging Circle
at the Walker, “I think of it as suggesting a new relationship to an urban landscape, something
that could be more wild, more productive, more communal, more social. A place at which you
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
42
Ibid.
43
Ibid.!
! 24
could gather things to eat, or things to use at home in some way.”
44

! The process of questioning and resisting the traditionally pre-determined functions that
are dictated by certain spaces—in the kitchen we prepare food from the grocery store, on the
lawn the kids play catch, in the museum we quietly view art—is also part of the larger process of
claiming agency over the spaces in which we live. Haeg’s projects challenge the viewer to
reconsider urban space, and see more possibilities in how they can use and live in cities.
45
Haeg
writes:
By attacking the front lawn, an essential icon of the American Dream, my hope is to
ignite a chain reaction of thoughts that question other antiquated conventions of home,
street, neighborhood, city, and global networks that we take for granted. If we see that
our neighbor’s typical lawn instead can be a beautiful food garden, perhaps we begin to
look at the city around us with new eyes.
46

Even though it can feel like we live in pre-determined spaces, ordained by powers larger than
ourselves, it is crucial to realize where and how we have the power to effect change. Haeg
continues:
The seemingly inevitable urban structures start to unravel as we recognize that we have a
choice about how we want to live and what we want to do with the places we’ve inherited
from previous generations. No matter what has been handed to us, each of us should be
given license to be an active part in the creation of the cities that we share, and in the
process, our private land can be a public model for the world in which we would like to
live.
47

This empowering call to have “an active part in the creation of the cities that we share” is a
primary tenant for all of the artworks discussed here. Haeg, Futurefarmers, and Fallen Fruit all
work in public forums in order to spread this idea.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
44
Ibid.
45
In addition to Edible Estates, Haeg’s projects about animals and expanding our conceptions of how and
where animals can live, contributes to the theme of questioning the functions of urban spaces. Haeg’s
Animal Estates (2008-2013) are organized in a similar manner as Edible Estates. Fritz Haeg, “Animal
Estates,” Fritz Haeg, accessed Dec. 20, 2015, http://www.fritzhaeg.com/garden/initiatives/animalestates
/main2.html.
46
Haeg, Edible Estates, 8.!
47
Ibid.
! 25
Chapter 3: Futurefarmers: Regeneration from Contamination

Futurefarmers is a collective of artists, designers, architects, and activists that was started
in 1994 by Amy Franceschini. Futurefarmers is an evolving collective, members come and go,
and the same group does not work on every project. The group’s collaborative projects resist
categorization of material, exhibition format, duration, concept, and discipline. Throughout all of
their work, however, they consistently investigate the history and current state of the human
connection to the environment. Similar to Fritz Haeg and Fallen Fruit, Futurefarmers question
the systems that dictate our relationship to natural resources, and ask whether there are updated
alternatives that better serve communities and the environment.
The participants in Futurefarmers have distinctly interdisciplinary backgrounds:
Franceschini is trained as a graphic designer and her primary collaborator, Lode Vranken, is an
internationally successful architect.
48
Most of their other collaborators’ bios have several titles
attached to them, such as Dan Allende, “artist, builder, and inventor,” or, Anya Kamenskaya,
“ag-centric organizer and green building apprentice.”
49
This interdisciplinary scope of
Futurefarmers’ grasp is also apparent in the complexity of their multi-faceted projects. For
example, an ongoing public project in Oslo, Norway called Flatbread Society (2012) examined
the history of Bjørvika, a waterfront area in Oslo, and its relationship to harvesting grain.
Commissioned by the city to do a permanent public piece, Futurefarmers’ response was a
research-based, multi-faceted campaign to reclaim a sense of “the commons.” Flatbread Society
includes a cultivated grain field, a bake house, a community garden, public programs, and
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
48
Notably, Franceschini’s design studio is responsible for the Twitter logo, and the compensation for this
has helped to fund many of the Futurefarmers projects. “Twitter,” Futurefarmers/Design Studio, accessed
Jan. 18, 2016, http://www.futurefarmers.com/design/projects/#twitter.
49
“People,” Futurefarmers, accessed Dec. 1, 2015, http://www.futurefarmers.com/#about.
! 26
resulted in the official renaming of the site. The project participants included “farmers, bakers,
oven builders, artists, activists, soil scientists and city officials.”
50
Parts of the project were
temporary, such as programs and workshops, but a permanent community space remains.
Not only do the members of Futurefarmers represent many disciplines through their own
backgrounds, but their projects engage different publics. They have executed public projects all
over the US and Europe, working in major metropolitan cities, rural areas, universities, and with
galleries and community groups. In a review of Futurefarmers 2013 exhibition at Gallery 16 in
San Francisco, Frances Richard describes the group’s process as, “a dynamic exchange with
experts of all stripes: from the Italian farmers to the residents of a North Philadelphia
neighborhood notorious for brownfield pollution… to the shoe-repair guys—one in each of New
York’s five boroughs—whose shops became the conceptual focal points for a nine-day series of
lectures.”
51
Futurefarmers also show work in galleries, both in documentation of public projects
and environmentally-oriented objects conceptualized for the gallery space. The scope and
pedagogical rigor of Futurefarmers’ projects aligns with the history of Social Practice, yet, the
inclusion of innovative, and often playful, design sets the group apart.
In 2011, Futurefarmers were asked to submit a proposal to the City of Philadelphia’s
Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy for a temporary public project planned to
coincide with Philadelphia’s 2015 Green Initiative, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s
National Brownfield Conference. Funded by a grant from the William Penn Foundation,
Futurefarmers took the opportunity to do a public project revolving around two of Philadelphia’s
prevalent problems: abandoned buildings and “brownfields,” a word that refers to soil that has
been contaminated with metals. The group proposed the Soil Kitchen (2011), a public space that
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
50
“Flatbread Society: About,” Flatbread Society, accessed Dec. 15, 2015,
http://flatbreadsociety.net/about.
51
Frances Richard, “Futurefarmers,” Artforum International 52, no. 6 (2014): 220.
! 27
activated a vacant building, and became a hub for information about soil contamination. The
space hosted the daily exchange of samples of soil from the surrounding neighborhoods for
bowls of soup. Workshop events focused on urban agriculture, soil remediation, composting, and
wind turbine construction taking place over a six-day period in the Soil Kitchen.
Since Philadelphia is known as one of the most polluted cities in the US, Franceschini and
her collaborators researched the history of Philadelphia, and what caused its soil contamination.
As she describes in a video on the Soil Kitchen: “The big problem in understanding the ecology
of the soil is that many of these industries were destroyed, and the rubble was strewn across the
city into various lots. So we don’t always know the root cause.”
52

53

By setting up Soil Kitchen as an exciting new community space, Futurefarmers were able
to take the complex and scientifically intimidating idea of soil remediation and turn it into an
accessible, fun exchange with members of the surrounding communities. This was achieved not
only through the exchange of soil samples for food, allowing people to comfortably gather and
eat together, but also through aligning the project with Don Quixote, a literary figure that is
culturally relevant, and totally outside the realm of science.
Around the same time they were developing their proposal for the City of Philadelphia,
Franceschini and Allende had been thinking about windmills as a form of sustainable energy
production, which reminded them of a scene in Cervantes’ famous novel Don Quixote in which
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
52
Futurefarmers, “Documentation,” Soil Kitchen, accessed Dec. 20, 2015,
http://www.futurefarmers.com/soilkitchen/soilkitchendocumentary.html.
53
Soil remediation is a crucial element in the effort to grow food on personal plots in homes and
community gardens. In many areas across the US, the soil we find around our homes is not safe to grow
food in. A range of things can cause soil contamination, and chemicals can linger in the soil for decades.
Despite the fact that soil remediation is an important step in safely planting food, it is not discussed as
publicly and as frequently as the concepts of planting seasonal vegetables or maintaining a community
garden.
! 28
the protagonist sees a windmill for the first time and thinks it is an invasive monster.
54

He
charges at the windmill on his horse, lance drawn, and gets thrown to the ground by the
mysterious contraption. The characterization of the windmill, a symbol of industrialization, as an
intruder in the landscape seemed to the pair like an appropriate framework when considering the
damage industry has done to the soil in Philadelphia. Using the idea of industry as an intruder is
also somewhat ironic when it comes to Philadelphia, one of the American cities that experienced
a manufacturing boom during the first half of the 20th century, and has struggled increasingly to
maintain an adaptive economy since. The Soil Kitchen website describes the inspiration
Futurefarmers found in Cervantes saying:
As individuals we often find difficulty in the ability to initiate change within the complex
systems that govern our lives, yet in the 17th century, on the verge of the industrial
revolution, Spanish author Miguel Cervantes described a character who took a stand
against seemingly invisible giants. His name was Don Quixote de la Mancha. Today, after
centuries of industrial wear upon the earth, natural resources and the places we live, we
have trouble pinpointing exactly the cause, let alone developing a solution. As the city of
Philadelphia strives to become the greenest city by 2015, Futurefarmers looks to the
imaginative power of Don Quixote for inspiration for the creation of Soil Kitchen.
55

To bring the connection full circle, Futurefarmers built and installed an actual windmill on the
roof of the Soil Kitchen building. It powered just enough extra light to keep the space running
during the day, and was a visual reminder of sustainable energy alternatives.
Though the connection between soil contamination in Philadelphia and Don Quixote seems
like a stretch at first, this message of not getting overwhelmed by environmental degradation is
powerful. The characterization of industry as “invisible giants” is a useful and poetic metaphor
for the daunting power structures that seem to cause environmental destruction. The framework
of using a community space to spread awareness about an environmental problem also connects
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
54
“Documentation.”
55
Futurefarmers, “Don Quixote,” Soil Kitchen, accessed Jan. 10, 2016,
http://www.futurefarmers.com/soilkitchen/donquixote.html.
! 29
to the theme of visibility and invisibility.
Soil Kitchen is a successful project because it presents the problem of soil remediation to
the public in a multi-faceted, sensitive, and optimistic way. The project is interactive by making
scientific resources available to the public, a more engaging and effective strategy than lecturing
people about how their soil is unsafe. The project also disrupts the Philadelphia cityscape by
activating an abandoned space. The dilapidated building where Soil Kitchen took place is on a
seemingly busy street-corner in the city. Therefore, all of the people that passed by on foot or in
their cars during the duration of the project would have seen a curiously thriving space instead of
the expected void.
In a city with many abandoned buildings in various stages of disrepair, this is a great
model. There are also many vacant lots in Philadelphia, which, as Amy Franceschini describes in
a Soil Kitchen video, are all brownfields.
56
But the space is there, and if citizens took it upon
themselves to rebuild the soil or use the space to build raised plant-beds, there could be a
network of “common” land to be used for gardening. As Franceschini describes, “Contamination
is a huge issue, but we have solutions. We can build our own soil, we can raise beds, there’s
phytoremediation, there’s mycoremediation. We all have to be farming, we all have to be
planting. We have to organize.”
57
Phytoremediation is a process by which certain green plants
are used to remove contaminants in the soil because they naturally extract and convert them, and
mycoremediation uses fungi to either extract contamination or stimulate enzyme growth to
reduce toxins.
Futurefarmers have many ways of organizing people around ideas of sustainability. As Soil
Kitchen exemplifies, the group’s projects are multi-faceted, both in their conceptual impulses and
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
56
“Documentation.”
57
Ibid.
! 30
their approach to interacting with the public. In addition to workshops, or an exhibition, most
Futurefarmers projects contain a conceptual object that the group has designed. These include for
example, the Ethnobotanical Station (2012), a mobile archive to gather information about the
relationship between humans and plants, or Lunchbox Laboratory (2008), a prototype for a
compact system schoolchildren can use to learn about algae. In the case of Soil Kitchen this
designed element was the windmill, which Francheschini and Allende built as a conceptual nod
to Don Quixote, and also used to power the lighting in the building. These prototypes are an
important part in the range and impact of Futurefarmers practice because they survive as discrete
objects beyond a temporary project or exhibition. Frances Richard describes the Futurefarmers
retrospective at Gallery 16 in San Francisco in 2014, saying:
Perhaps inevitably, the installation felt like a charming store… The idiom of contemporary
product design, from IKEA to Apple, whispered through the room… Surely this
commodity-friendly stance is intentional. How can urban farming or the cultivation of
other community-based craft make a significant environmental and political difference if
such practices are not widely adopted? And how are things widely adopted in our culture if
they are not packaged and advertised?
58

Richard brings up the question of impact, particularly when it comes to objects that
represent environmental issues or document projects. If these projects are truly intended to make
our lives more sustainable, how does the impact realistically translate from an interesting
experience someone has at a gallery or workshop, to effecting change in the lives of participants?
In the case of Futurefarmers, the impact does extend beyond representation or a fleeting
experience. By changing the cityscape, collaborating with the public, creating tools that last
beyond the timeframe of a project or residency, and creating opportunities to learn,
Futurefarmers extend their reach. Though they may also create objects as part of their practice,
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
58
Richard, “Futurefarmers,” 220.
!!
! 31
their work is far from cute or gimmicky. They use their interdisciplinary skills as designers,
architects, engineers, etc. to create potential solutions to environmental problems. Their
interactive, pedagogical approach incorporates the public into the process of the piece, teaching
as they go. Finally, each Futurefarmers project is site-specific, integrating the specific
environmental needs, landscape, and resources into the conception of the project. All of these
factors invest a project in its location and, in turn, give participants a reason to become invested
in the project and the issues involved.

! 32
Chapter 4: Fallen Fruit: Leaving a Trail of Fruit Behind

Fallen Fruit is a Los Angeles–based collaborative team formed in 2004 by artists David
Burns, Matias Viegener, and Austin Young. In 2013, Viegener left the group, and Fallen Fruit
has continued with Burns and Young since then. The three cofounders started the group with a
question in mind: why are so many people going hungry on the streets of Los Angeles when we
live in a climate where fruit trees are bountiful and common? Fallen Fruit’s work focuses on
helping the public identify fruit trees, and spreading information about where publicly accessible
trees are located so fruit will be eaten instead of going to waste. To raise awareness about
publicly accessible fruit, Burns, Viegener, and Young started by making a map of the fruit trees
in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles where they live. They now have maps of various
neighborhoods in L.A. as well as areas in cities in Colorado, Texas, North Carolina, Spain,
Sweden, Mexico, and Denmark. All of these can be downloaded for free on the Fallen Fruit
website.
59

In addition to maps the group subsequently organized public Fruit Jams (2006-present),
workshops where attendees are encouraged to work with strangers to combine their homegrown
and foraged fruit to make jam.
60
Fruit Jams are typically staged in a museum or gallery, and
Burns, Viegener, and Young have also utilized the white cube for installations that delve deeper
into fruit as a lens through which to examine culture, history, and community. As they describe,
“by always working with fruit as a material or media, the catalogue of projects and works
reimagine public interactions with the margins of urban space, systems of community and
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
59
David Burns, Matias Viegener, and Austin Young, “Fruit Maps,” Fallen Fruit, accessed Jan. 12, 2016,
http://fallenfruit.org/map/.
60
David Burns, Matias Viegener, and Austin Young, “Public Fruit Jams,” Fallen Fruit, accessed Jan. 12,
2016, http://fallenfruit.org/projects/. !
! 33
narrative real-time experience.”
61
For the artists, fruit as a medium always maintains an
interactive and collaborative element, whether that means taking children on an urban foraging
walk, or using social media to create an open-source platform for contributing to the collective
fruit tree map.
Another important part of Fallen Fruit’s practice is the Urban Fruit Trails (2004-present)
initiative which has led into their current project, The Endless Orchard (2016). As an extension
of their mapping practice, the group has been working with community groups to create a
network of walking trails where fruit trees are planted and tended by the public.
62
The Endless
Orchard is a website and smartphone application that aims to crowd-source information about
the location of fruit trees. Users can post the locations of trees they find or trees they have
planted.
63
This project is still in its fundraising stage, and aims to unify the information and maps
the group has made so far into one accessible resource. All of Fallen Fruit’s projects focus on
accessibility to locally grown fruit, and locally sourced food means less food traveling by way of
fossil-fueled vehicles.
Burns and Young use fruit as a means of critiquing waste, urban space, and accessibility to
pure and healthy foods. Part of the reason to advocate for planting new fruit trees, and knowing
where publically accessible fruit hangs, is that these practices transcend economic borders. Many
parts of the greater Los Angeles area can be classified as “food deserts,” where pure and healthy
foods are not available. These are typically low-income areas, where there are fewer grocery
stores than in middle- to upper-class neighborhoods. Food deserts are also characterized by the
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
61
David Burns, Matias Viegener, and Austin Young, “About,” Fallen Fruit, accessed Jan. 16, 2016,
http://fallenfruit.org/about/.
62
David Burns, Matias Viegener, and Austin Young, “Urban Fruit Trails,” Fallen Fruit, accessed Jan. 16,
2016, http://fallenfruit.org/projects/urbanfruittrails/.
63
David Burns, Matias Viegener, and Austin Young, “The Endless Orchard,” Fallen Fruit, accessed Jan.
16, 2016, http://fallenfruit.org/projects/endlessorchard/.
! 34
types of restaurants that exist in a given area—are there only unhealthy fast-food options
available? Or do the local food businesses reflect a range in healthiness? By teaching people how
to gather their own fruit, and encouraging them to plant their own fruit trees, Fallen Fruit
empowers individuals to seek out local healthy produce outside of the industrialized corporate
food system. Their projects also encourage gathering fruit without using money, which further
critiques the global industrial food system, and promotes the idea of preserving a sense of the
commons. As the Fallen Fruit manifesto states, “Share with the world and the world will share
with you. Barter, don't buy! Give things away! You have nothing to lose but your hunger!”
64

In addition to commenting on accessibility to healthy produce, Fallen Fruit also uses the
non-invasive tactic of mapping to comment on the politics of private and public space. In the
massive network of residential neighborhoods that makes up L.A., many fruit trees are planted
on the borders of private yards or gardens, with fruit-bearing branches that hang over property
lines into public space. By distributing fruit maps users are encouraged both to see their own
neighborhood in a new way, and to explore neighborhoods outside their own, possibly crossing
socio-economic or cultural divisions. As the group states in the “Principles of Fallen Fruit”
section of its manifesto, “Think about who has fruit and other resources, and who doesn’t.”
65
In
other words, taking oneself on a fruit forage can also be a way to focus on the social structure of
a city, allowing the forager to notice the difference between socio-economic areas.
In urban areas our lives are increasingly privatized and isolated. This is especially true in
Los Angeles, where many residents drive (usually alone) as their primary form of transportation.
Encouraging residents to gather produce on foot, in various areas, opens the city up as a shared
resource. This process of sharing fruit as a means to make urban life more sustainable is also
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
64
David Burns, Matias Viegener, and Austin Young, “Fallen Fruit,” accessed November 15, 2015.
http://www.fallenfruit.org/wp-content/uploads/FF-manifesto-handout.pdf.
65
Ibid.
! 35
described in the manifesto:
This map… is for everyone to share, but we ask that you sample what you find and not
hoard. If you have property, think about planting a fruit tree on the street to share with your
neighbors. Most of the fruit you buy comes from far away and more and more comes from
overseas. This wastes energy and further alienates us from our food. Eat local, think
global.
66

Encouraging homeowners to plant fruit trees that anyone can pick from is an intervention
in urban space because it favors plants that are useful and produce food over ones that are purely
aesthetic. The traditional norm for homeowners is to landscape to enhance the visual cohesion of
the property. Instead, Burns and Young propose to open up these strictly private spaces, allowing
anyone to share in what your property can produce. Shifting the tidy order of residential
architecture resists the compartmentalization of space in the same way that Haeg’s Edible
Estates resisted the norms of the front lawn as a pristine symbol of leisure, and the grocery store
as the place where food comes from. Fallen Fruit’s intervention in urban space is a form of
resistance against the agricultural conglomerates (or “big-ag”), and it is practical in its approach
to sustainability—food is being wasted and people are hungry. These values are reflected in
Fallen Fruit’s manifesto:
A SPECTER is haunting our cities: barren landscapes with foliage and flowers, but nothing
to eat. Fruit can grow almost anywhere, and can be harvested by everyone. Our cities are
planted with frivolous and ugly landscaping, sad shrubs and neglected trees, whereas they
should burst with ripe produce. Great sums of money are spent on young trees, water and
maintenance. While these trees are beautiful, they could be good for us and beautiful.
67

As a good manifesto should, the piece goes on to implore its reader to join the fight and petition
their town or city to only plant fruit-bearing trees in public parks.
At times, Fallen Fruit’s manifesto and the wide scope of their projects can seem vague, and
even slightly gimmicky, when it comes to a larger context of environmentalism. The
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
66
Ibid.!
67
Ibid.
! 36
aestheticized images of fruit on the Fallen Fruit website and in their gallery installations can
seem almost comical in their light-heartedness. The work takes on a more serious pedagogical
tone though when considering the cultural history of fruit as a symbol for agricultural bounty.
68

In their manifesto, Burns and Young allude to the history of Southern California as a symbol of a
certain version of American utopianism. In a way, they are advocating for a return to this vision
of Los Angeles, where ripe fruit is found around every corner. Their work is more practical than
utopian though, and takes on its environmentalist bent today because of the effects of food miles
on the atmosphere, and the paradoxical problem of high levels of food waste and high levels of
hunger in this country.
Burns and Young’s utopian and practical impulses find a balance in their commission by
the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs for the Del Aire Fruit Park (2013).
Commissioned in conjunction with a new Del Aire Park Community Center, and completed in
January 2013, Fallen Fruit’s first sanctioned public fruit orchard includes 27 trees planted on the
site, and 60 more distributed to residents. Del Aire, an unincorporated South Bay community of
Los Angeles County located between Hawthorne and El Segundo, is right next to the 405
freeway, and just south of the 105 freeway and LAX airport. This ordinary middle- to lower-
income-bracket neighborhood is plagued by the consistent noise pollution from planes taking off
and landing. As Patricia Leigh Brown writes, it “feels light-years away from the Frank Gehry
world of contemporary Los Angeles art. With its modest postwar ranch houses built for
aerospace workers.”
69

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
68
Particularly in Southern California there is a history of luring settlers out West with advertisements of
Los Angeles as a lush expanse of thriving orange groves. !
69
Patricia Leigh Brown, “Tasty, and Subversive, Too,” New York Times, May 11, 2013, accessed Jan.
10, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/us/fruit-activists-take-urban-gardens-in-a-new-
direction.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1).
! 37
The decision to commission this unusual form of public art in a rather banal, small park
just south of the airport shows the pragmatism of Fallen Fruit’s approach. Fruit, and the Del Aire
Fruit project specifically, is interactive on two levels, because the public can eat the fruit at will,
and because the surrounding community contributes to the maintenance of the trees. Janet Owen
Driggs quotes Karly Katona, a Del Aire county supervisor, who describes the interactivity the
county was hoping to achieve through the fruit park, saying, “There is an understanding that the
community will be involved in upkeep… It’s an experiment… It might not work.”
70
The Del
Aire community is much too large to be fed by this small orchard, but it is a symbolic gesture, an
invitation to plant more food-bearing plants as a community resource.
Finding fruit trees in manicured rows in a public park is not the same type of urban
intervention as guerrilla planting in alleys or public park strips, but both models speak equally
loud in the effort to make cities more sustainable. Regardless of how it was planted, if a fruit tree
gets watered long enough to take shape, chances are it will be maintained and continue living for
years. The potential for changing the urban landscape is immense. Both aspects of Fallen Fruit’s
practice, Del Aire Fruit Park and the Fruit Maps, address hunger, critique the difference in
accessibility to pure and healthy foods in different socio-economic areas, and explore the
division of private and public. Burns and Young are the initiators of planting more fruit trees in
urban areas, but they also encourage the public to continue this work without them. In the case of
Del Aire Fruit Park for example, Fallen Fruit hosted multiple events including a fruit tree
adoption, Fruit Jam and planting day, at the park in an effort to bring local residents, students
and city workers together. The intention with these programs was to, “generate a sense of shared
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
70
Ibid. !
! 38
ownership and long-term stewardship of the civic art project.”
71
Giving people the opportunity to
care for and use a garden creates pride, and a sense of responsibility, which reinforces the desire
to maintain the space.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
71
Los Angeles County Arts Commission, “Del Aire Park,” County Collection, accessed March 19, 2016,
http://www.lacountyarts.org/civicart/projectdetails/id/182.
! 39
Chapter 5: Conclusion

Fritz Haeg’s Edible Estates, Futurefarmers’ Soil Kitchen, and Fallen Fruit’s mapping and
planting projects each succeed in shifting awareness about urban space by creating new
community resources, and working with different publics to identify ways to make our lives
more sustainable. Haeg transforms the private front lawn into a public garden and space for
gathering, Futurefarmers converts an abandoned building into a community restaurant and
research hub, and Fallen Fruit opens up the marginal spaces between private and public. Each of
these urban interventions are models of successful socially engaged art practices that present
strategies for making cities more environmentally adaptive.
The urban interventions of Fritz Haeg, Future Farmers, and Fallen Fruit should be seen as
models for inspiring practical, sustained change in peoples’ lives through their interactive,
interdisciplinary, and instructional methods. Each artist/group has found a way to spark
participation while teaching people about environmental issues of water use, food production,
soil contamination, and the effects of the supermarket model. Their projects also extend beyond
an ephemeral event-based interaction by creating web-based tools that are available for anyone
to use after the project’s completion. Susan Cross describes the dual impulse that environmental
art practices can have in addressing both the present and the future in her article “Revolutionary
Gardens.” Cross writes, “Many contemporary artists are not only ‘doing something’ that might
help us build a better society in the future, but they are creating micro-utopias, laboratories that
offer models of alternative ways of thinking and living now.”
72

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
72
Cross borrows the concept of “micro-utopias” from curator and theorist Nicolas Bourriaud, who used
the concept in his foundational text on relational art, Relational Aesthetics (Les Presse Du Reel, Franc,
1998). Susan Cross, “Revolutionary Gardens,” American Art 25, no. 2 (Summer 2011): 30, accessed

Dec.
5, 2015, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/661967.
! 40
The interactive element of these projects is crucial because it is pedagogical: instead of
displaying representations of environmental destruction, each artist/group has a commitment to
investing time to teach people how to make a difference. The nature of Haeg’s prolonged
engagement with the families and communities he creates Edible Estates with is essential to the
success of each prototype. Haeg has to get to know the families he selects to house each garden.
He has to make sure they really wanted an edible garden, and that they are going to care for the
garden and keep it producing seasonally. Fallen Fruit takes an instructive role when they teach
people how to plant and find fruit trees, and how to make jam. Futurefarmers take a highly
pedagogical approach, through their research, workshops, and production of tools for the public
to adopt. Helguera explains the necessity of time in this type of interactive public work, saying,
“If there is something common to every pedagogical approach, it is an emphasis on the necessity
of investing time to achieve a goal.”
73
While each project has different goals and necessitates a
different timeframe, Fritz Haeg, Futurefarmers, and Fallen Fruit tailor their projects to the
specific sites and particular communities in which they are working, making their goals more
realistic.
The web-based element of each artist/groups practice not only extends the reach of their
projects temporally, but also geographically. Fritz Haeg provides consistently accessible
resources by publishing instructions for making an edible garden for each regional prototype. He
also publishes the lists of plants used in each iteration, so that anyone can make their own.
Futurefarmers document all of their projects extensively, often creating new websites for each
endeavor. During their project Victory Gardens (2007), Futurefarmers created a web-based map
of open spaces that could be used for gardening. As David van der Leer describes, “As part of
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
73
Helguera, Education for Socially Engaged Art, 19.
! 41
the Victory Garden project for San Francisco, Futurefarmers developed the Urban Garden
Registry, an online map of yards, window boxes, rooftops, and unused land as possible food
production sites; it became so popular that the city adopted it.”
74
This wide-reaching use of apps
and internet-based resources is similar to the way Fallen Fruit is working on the Endless Orchard
archive. Anyone can contribute a fruit tree location to the website, making it a tool that has
started as an art project, but has the capability to become a fully-realized resource by and for the
people.
Extending the reach of these projects through internet resources is important because it
reaches wider publics, those that might not attend a workshop, but are interested in learning
about creative environmental strategies nonetheless. As Helguera describes, one critique of many
socially engaged art practices is that they are not actually accessing anyone beyond the small,
homogenous art community. Helguera explains:
Many participatory projects are open, in theory, to the broad public, in fact serve very
specific audiences. It could be said that a SEA projects operates within three registers:
one is its immediate circle of participants and supporters; the second is the critical art
world… and the third is society at large, through governmental structures, the media, and
other organizations or systems that may absorb and assimilate the ideas or other aspects
of the project.
75

By creating an interactive initial project, publishing documentation of that project, and creating
public resources that are accessible through the internet or as apps, Haeg, Futurefarmers, and
Fallen Fruit are accessing audiences within all three registers.
Edible Estates, Soil Kitchen, and Fallen Fruit’s mapping and planting projects also
address different publics in the initial stage of interaction, which is another reason why they are
useful to consider in conjunction with one another. For example, the one problem with Haeg’s
Edible Estates in its original form is that you have to own a house with a lawn to participate.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
74
!David van der Leer, “Future Farmers,” BOMB, no. 112 (Summer 2010), 36.
75
Helguera, Education for Socially Engaged Art, 22-23.!
! 42
Obviously this excludes a huge amount of people that cannot afford to own homes. Although the
intention is for the garden to become a community resource for the surrounding neighbors, it is
highly likely that the neighbors are going to be from the same socio-economic bracket, making it
a project that only serves a homogeneous demographic.
Soil Kitchen addressed the public through a storefront, directly accessible from the
sidewalk. Through offering food, and good design, along with information and resources,
Futurefarmers could draw in a range of participants, from those that knew about the project, to
those that wandered in off the street. Because Futurefarmers were responding to a specific need
in the local community, the problem of abandoned buildings, the project had the potential to
engage all residents, not just those that are aware the work was connected to an art project. In
this way Futurefarmers transforms urban space and engages with a wide community on multiple
levels.
While Fallen Fruit’s focus is sometimes vague in terms of what spaces they target when
they refer to the borders of private and public, this work is important because it addresses those
that do not own property with space for planting. Fallen Fruit encourages people to leave their
homes and explore their city, seeing their area and others in a new way. This is an activity that
anyone can partake in, and actually works to soften the boundaries between income-based
neighborhoods.
The projects discussed here also each transform different public spaces (the private lawn,
the storefront/business, public parks, and borderline spaces) in ways that work for each project.
Futurefarmers created an exchange economy in the Soil Kitchen, exchanging soup for soil. The
project presented an alternative economic model, in addition to an alternative model for using
urban space. Soil Kitchen was also temporary and municipally organized, while Haeg partnered
! 43
with arts organizations like museums to fund Edible Estates, and found participating families
directly. Fallen Fruit has utilized both models and many in-between. These are all useful and
necessary avenues through which to change our relationship to the environment.
In each project there is a balance between practicality, and a distinct sense of forward-
thinking optimism. In the case of Fallen Fruit, their use of space is practical since they utilize an
element of the Los Angeles cityscape which could easily and cheaply be used more effectively—
the accessible boundaries between private land and public space in residential areas. Fritz Haeg
activated the static front lawn, a type of space we have a massive surplus of all across the United
States. Futurefarmers utilized surplus space in Soil Kitchen by using an abandoned building as
the site for their project. Gaining the permission to use a storefront is more difficult to organize;
however, the model of using abandoned storefronts temporarily for community projects is a
useful idea for many cities. Futurefarmers also used the windmill as a practical appliance and a
utopian symbol. Francheschini describes it saying, “The windmill also serves as a sculptural
invitation to imagine a potential green energy future.”
76

Haeg, Futurefarmers, and Fallen Fruits’ projects value collectivity and the creation of
resources that are meant to be shared. Part of the impact of Edible Estates is that the private lawn
gets opened up for the surrounding community to participate in. For Futurefarmers, the
opportunity to talk about soil remediation is a step in the process of teaching people how to
garden and collectively use the brownfields in Philadelphia to produce food. For Fallen Fruit, the
intention is for fruit trees to be collectively maintained in order for everyone to enjoy. All of
these works attempt to reintroduce a shared resource, typically the resource of food, into a
community. Creating shared resources is a typical part of environmental practices because there
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
76
Futurefarmers, “About,” Soil Kitchen, accessed Jan. 5, 2016,
http://www.futurefarmers.com/soilkitchen/about.html.
! 44
is generally a link between the aspects of life that isolate us and environmental degeneration.
Cars, bigger more private living spaces, a cornucopia of options available at all times at the
supermarket—these luxuries are available because of a reckless use of resources.
With all Socially Engaged Art practices, the question arises of why term these projects art
at all? Why isn’t this work simply activism, or community organizing? In this case, why is public
art a better strategy in inspiring people to live more sustainably than another form of intervention
or participation? The answer lies in the fact that artists are independent agents that meditate on
meaning, inquiry, and research. They are not required to answer to a superior, in the way that a
political organizer or representative from a company or non-profit organization is. They are also
not necessarily focused on a specific goal, which determines whether a project is a success or a
failure. This sort of determinism limits the possible outcomes of a public project or interaction.
As I quoted Lucy Lippard in the introduction of this text, artists make connections, and through
connections new possibilities arise. Lippard also describes the role of the artist saying, “As
envisionaries, artists should be able to provide a way to work against the dominant culture’s
rapacious view of nature, reinstate the mythical and cultural dimensions of ‘public’ experience,
and at the same time become conscious of the ideological relationships and historical
construction of place.”
77
This holistic approach allows the cultural, historical, ideological and
mythological to intermingle, and that openness, towards the identity of a place and community of
people, is why the public benefits from exploring sustainability through public art.
Another important characteristic of these projects is that the issues Haeg, Fallen Fruit and
Futurefarmers’ projects address are issues that most cities face today. Although the projects were
formulated to address the specific conditions in a particular time and place, their projects also
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
77
Lippard, The Lure of the Local, 19.
! 45
have, and should continue to, be used as models in other locations around the world. There are
“invisible giants” everywhere, and environmental degradation is a global problem. While Haeg,
Futurefarmers, and Fallen Fruit have all focused their projects in a Western context, their work
all explores universal questions: how do we create a sense of home? How can we share resources
with our neighbors? How do we question the systems that have been put in place that dictate our
daily lives? How can we adapt and use space more effectively? There is no single way to make
an impact, but Fritz Haeg, Futurefarmers, and Fallen Fruit’s projects present compelling models
for addressing local and global concerns in participatory ways that engage a range of publics.

! 46
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ALT LA: alternative art spaces that shaped Los Angeles, 1964-1978

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Blackness and belonging: the impact of Brockman Gallery and the Underground Museum on Los Angeles Art and Culture

Asset Metadata

Creator Dixon, Grace P. (author)

Core Title Sustainability through participation: public art projects by Fritz Haeg, Futurefarmers, and Fallen Fruit

School Roski School of Art and Design

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Art and Curatorial Practices in the Public Sphere

Publication Date 04/20/2016

Defense Date 04/01/2016

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Audience participation,environmentalism,OAI-PMH Harvest,public art,public space,social practice

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Moss, Karen (committee chair), Bharne, Vinayak (committee member), Steiner, Rochelle (committee member)

Creator Email gracedix@usc.edu,noxidgracie@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-233258

Unique identifier UC11279439

Identifier etd-DixonGrace-4301.pdf (filename),usctheses-c40-233258 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-DixonGrace-4301.pdf

Dmrecord 233258

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Dixon, Grace P.

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA