Artists and Gardens: A Growing Concern

Schmidt is an artic­u­late mem­ber of a new tribe of socially engaged artists who are com­mit­ted to cul­ti­vat­ing com­mu­nity gar­dens and urban agri­cul­tural plots as works of pub­lic art. Their cre­ative roots extend into a num­ber of post­mod­ern move­ments, from Fluxus and earth art to rela­tional aes­thet­ics and new genre pub­lic art, and their role is often to co-ordinate and facil­i­tate rather than man­u­fac­ture and lec­ture. As demon­strated by the Grow project, such artists are happy to con­sult the experts—biologists, agron­o­mists, hor­ti­cul­tur­ists, land­scape archi­tects, com­mu­nity workers—for pub­lic lessons in the keep­ing of mason bees, the cre­ation of ver­ti­cal straw­berry planters, or the build­ing of back­yard chicken coops. Demon­stra­tions and work­shops are an inte­gral part of the process…read more

Excerpt from Robin Laurence’s arti­cle in Cana­dian Art on-line, “Artists and Gar­dens: A Grow­ing Con­cern.” Novem­ber, 2011.

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