Abandoned Allotment Vulkan 604, Zürich, CH “Der Garten ist leer.”

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Der Garten ist leer. (The garden is vacant.) 
An Embodied Field Work Laboratory:

Vulkan Garten map

The fieldwork project Der Garten ist leer  takes place at the abandoned urban garden, Vulkan 604 located at the Allotment Garden Vulkan Zurich-Altstetten in Switzerland. The project has two in-situ Phases followed by Phase 3 of processing the collected “data”. Of course so – called “vacant” garden isn’t really vacant. The garden Vulkan 604 got abandoned 2 years ago and is now full of nonhuman life-forms but people say “This is an empty garden”. Many of the plants, often labeled as “weedy” (Unkraut) emerge in the  heavily human-impacted land of all the years of gardening.  My fieldwork research method, I call Ethnochoreobotanography,  is anchored on participation and observation through “thinking with the body”. In this embodied field work research I’m collecting data about plants, ecological patterns and plant/human relationships of past, present and future (hi)stories. The question I ask: Is Vulkan 604 in the process of becoming it’s own garden? Can the spontaneous plants “de-colonize” themselves from their (hi)stories. Could we call that process “auto-rewilding” (Autonome-Renaturierung)? What the abandoned garden has to tell us about land and plant/human relations and the celebration of “scenarios” without a script, a place for the “imperfect” form? Can we find “the spontaneous urban plants agency” and “their power” and give them a voice. During the time I’m in the Vulcan 604 – the vacant garden is my artist studio. The spontaneous urban plants are my collaborators, performers and mentors of the “embodied data” collection.

PHASE 1 Residency:  Vulkan 604: Der Garten ist leer.
August 27 – September 4, 2018
Few Field Work Photographic Notes

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Day 1  And so it begins. Stay in a Place. {in the image on the left hand side is “Kurt’s garden. On the right side the abandoned garden. I stay in one place in the midline of both gardens path. Kurt’s garden theory is control, management and we could say as well a “displacement of the wild (we would need to define what means’ wild”.) In reverse the abandoned garden is in the process of allowing weeds to enter, own agency of grow and has a lack of authoritative control.
Horseweed
Horseweed (Erigeron canadensis) was the plant that guided me to the abandoned garden Vulcan 604.  Horseweed articulates strong and upright into the landscape. It inserts itself not passively. It is active. It response to its ecological location.
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Day 2   Gardenborders explorations lets you talk with “human” neighbors. Stana has her garden since 25 years. She is very sad, because she has to leave her garden on October 31st to make space for redevelopment. She arrived from Slovakia 50 years ago. She says:’ My husband died 7 years ago and the garden helps me to feel calm. At the end of our lovely chat she grabs into her bag and gives me vegetables. “It was hot but a good year for Zucchini!” she says.

Vulcan 604 garden land was not rented out the last 2 years because all its  120 neighborhood gardens will need to be cleared by end of October 31st by the garden tenants. The “120 garden areal” land will be giving back to the city and  makes space for an Ice Hockey Stadium.

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Day 3  In my deep “Movement Herbarium” Drawings of transmitting plant movement gestures of the plant Bull thistle (Cirsium vulgar),  I witness the sharing of the above and below leaf  with insect species. Multispecies Sociality reveals everywhere. I’m thinking of chemical plant/insect ecologies and the affective charged energies and chemistries transduced within and among bodies. When we begin with plants, we quickly come to understand that organisms can learn how to attune their sensory bodies to the ongoing improvisational rhythm of differences that make up the world. Plants in the sense are difference generators…(from Involutionary_Momentum_Affective Ecologies by Carla Hustak and Natasha Myers)
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Day 3   Melissa Dietze and Martina Haenggi are spending time in the “abandoned garden” with me. Together we do Plant Identification and share “the story of seeds”.  Our conversations are about which seeds in the “abandoned” garden are  considered in society ‘invasive” and which seeds are “admired”.
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Day 3  What deep gratitude I feel that Christine Luggen was so open to join me to “Dance for Plants” . What an interesting “plant audience”! Lot of knowledge we gained from the “plant audience” as we danced the Improvisation Score BreathRomance
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Day 4  So how much in the context of an abandoned garden, a supposed cultivated Rose stays to be cultivated Rose? or does this Rosebush “escapes cultivation” and is in the process of becoming its own cultivation?
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Day 5   I love my urban fieldwork “abandoned garden office. It rains. Bees and Lizards are not ‘dancing’. The abandoned garden aura field is very quiet.
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Day 6   becoming – PinkFlower
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Day 7   Digging Deep
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Day 8  As the sun slowly appears after a couple of days rain the whole garden gets busy of lizards movements. The balance and gentleness of a baby lizard crawling up a Feverfew (Tanacetum parathenium) in German Mutterkraut is pure dynamic alignment and. It just waiting. Does the lizard sees me? What does the lizard observes- is it observation, participation or what? Does the leaf texture and “chemicals” give some communication to the lizard’s body? I love that you can see the lizard’s body because of the “see” through quality of a leaf.
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Day 8  It is the last day.  It is time to measure the land where I collected information from. I decide to use my body as my measurement tool.
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Day 8  Who has great foraging skills? Who is bringing vegetables (tomatoes, potatoes, cucumber and pepperoni) into the abandoned urban garden? I found today a forage storage patch right around the plant Goldenrod (Solidago) in German Goldrute.
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Day 8  And so it ends. I leave two marks of signs. One sign says Der Garten ist leer. The garden is vacant. and the other sign says ” GARTEN IN PROZESS. DIES IST EIN MUSTER GRUNDSTUECK DER AUTONOME-RENATURIERUNG.’ (Garden in Process. This is a Sample Plot of Auto-Rewilding.

What are my anticipation of research for Phase 2 Residency at the Vulkan garden(s) from October 23 – November 4, 2018 ?

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As I reflect the Phase 1 and prepare the Phase 2 in the abandoned garden Vulkan 604, the words of Stana are “hunting” me. Before I leave back to New York City I go to her and say bye. She takes my hand holds it for longer then we would expect from someone you only met a few times and says in Swiss German” “Es macht scho weh” (German: Es tut schon weh. English: It hurts.) She explains again that she will have no rights over the land anymore after October 31st. She has to leave a lot of things behind. As I prepare to deepen the research in this abandoned garden, I sense a strong connection that “I fall in love” with Vulkan 604 meanwhile I sense an urge to thank the people and the land for all the 75 years it was their for food, gathering and family and as well to prepare the land for the time when in a few months the city comes to “clean” the soil as they say – taking all the soil away.  On October 31 the 122 garden tenants will be gone. The nonhumans will be still their and do their work. I will be there.  Just as Viola tricolor fading is color I may have to fall out of love again with Vulkan 604 in this second in-situ Field Work.  See you soon Vulkan 604!  I will be there from October 23 until November 4th.

PHASE 2 Residency Der Garten ist leer.: Atemlos dem Schrei entgegen
October 22 – November 4, 2018
Few Field Work Photographic Notes

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Garden Huts flatten meanwhile gentle Garden “Hills” emerge I stand in the same spot then August 28.  Kurt’s garden hut got flatten and becomes part of the soil ground. It reminds us human settlement is an unsettling action. The stone slabs (Steinplatten) that marked architectural boundaries between the two garden plots are gone. Low to the ground a green curved path is like the spine of the earth’s path. I feel Kurt’s garden starts to grow into the state of spontaneous urban plants – a sense of a low terrain “jungle”. (Note: in the image on the right hand side is “Kurt’s garden- 605. On the left side the abandoned garden Vulkan 604)
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Feel with Plants the change  With every breath I take I expose myself to this outside world. With every touch I make I expose myself to this outside world. I invite my body to become the thinker and observer of this change that happens in front of me and behind me. What does it mean for my research to expand my horizons what the “plants” have to tell me in this situation of ‘change’- one disturbance is the other opportunity? (note: the 120 gardens are getting dismantled from the gardeners: huts get taking away,  last vegetables get unearthed-> in this process the soil gets looser- opens up for dormant seeds that drive in disturbance.
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In Disturbance “nature” reveals its Agency   I decided to witness the 120 garden dismanteling through the least advanced beings in Western perspectives ” the spontaneous urban plants” we often call weeds (Unkraut, Beikraut).  I follow Giant Goldenrod (Solidago gigantea), Viola tricoler , Mullein, Feverfew, Horseweed and others. They are here as the Red Cross. They are the Ecological Red Cross
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In Darkness the informal economy of “rescue” happens. During the time of the residency it  became a question should certain plants to be “rescued” or not. As it turns out before the gardeners actually lost their garden plots at night people would come to get certain plants. The cultivated plants such as pine trees were very popular.
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Allotment Gardens Huts in the process of dismanteling  The spontaneous plant Goldenrod (Goldrute) let me to garden 687, where Barbara’s garden is. For 48 years she took care of the garden. She is proud and poses in front of her hut. (see hut picture 7). The garden hut walls crumble with that “death” it seems their garden crumbles as if the vegetable world is death too. What if in this death we cultivate an attention to the vegetable world and its elements? In this process the plants attend to the sun, the soil, the atmosphere in their own terms. They don’t get anymore cut, organized and re-arranged to our needs for resource and aesthetic use. They enter the feminine culture and exit the masculine culture.
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 Mullein (Koenigskerze) so proud and energetic. The plant invites for a dance. I touch the branch and we start the dance  In this dance I move intentionally with, from and through this specific plant and its neighbors. So what happens if my starting points is the energy of the Mullein to allow the improvisation to emerge? It is not taken its resource but I let the Mullein’s energy to be the conduit for the dance improvisation movement source such as the environment (sun, rain, air, wind) is the conduit for the plant.
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Ecological Red Cross Flag  is a flag that questions and acknowledge that plants do have their own way of taking care of disturbance. By using the iconic “red cross” symbol as part of the flag symbol it allows people to have certain feelings and empathy with it. We hoist the flag on the day of the official public dismantling of all the 120 gardens on November 1st, 2018. If disaster arises we run away but the vegetal world takes the soil, water and so forth as its refugee. The way the  ecological red cross plants inhabit their environment they direct us to the elements they pay attention too – it is their singular place  –  they don’t leave the place – the place is their conduit of existence. It is an intimate place. I even what call it a feminine place.
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“Atemlos dem letzten Schrei entgegen” Action. A 3 hrs sensorial movement plant-walk, where the situation I choreographed where inspired, guided and informed by the spontaneous urban plants (the ecological red cross plants) that appeared during the last view months of the process of the vacancy of the gardens. The walk was organized by Martina Haenggi and involved participants from the Vulkan Garden Areal and Friends with diverse background and interests. My gratitude is to all the participants for being so open to have diverse perspectives about “spontaneous urban plants”, which many call “weeds”. Their is not only one story – in diverse stories we find the truth.
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One Stone Slap Why this stone slab in Vulcan 604 was not taken away and seemed to thrown onto the mullein plant. Mullein is a plant that comes when their is disturbance. Is this stone a sign of stop the disturbance.
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Takes a team to “rescue” land –What does it mean to re-locate a piece of “Ecological Red Cross” land? The action was part of the Plant- Led Walk Atemlos dem Schrei entgegen.
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Transport  – taking a whole ecosystem is different then taking one plant.
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Micro-Ecological Red Cross Monument  The living sculpture comprise three elements: a monumental sculpture with four “disturbed” garden plot patches with spontaneous urban plants and cultivated plants that became their own agency, a hand made compost center piece filled with flowers from the 120 vacant gardens plus written “empathy”  words for dismantling of the 120 vacant gardens (written by participants during the “Atemlos den Schrei entgegen” Plant- Led walk) and two flags that remind us on the pioneer plants rescue actions during the time of the “vacancy” of the gardens.  Sited in the lawn at the Allotment Garden 921 (A garden at the Vulkan Areal that is still allowed to stay)  this living sculpture is a testament to the diversity of weedy life forms that arrive during disturbance and are part of auto-rewilding.  The monument is meant to shift and change unpredictably and reflects on the passage of time. The compost, like building the humus reminds us things can’t be rushed. Monument are made for eternity so is this living sculpture.
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Last Actions on the Last Day of the Residency. Gardener Freddie puts its Plant- Rescue Arm Band around it’s Roses. Antonio helps to unearth his apricot tree. The best apple- it is so delicious to eat! The city takes away the Neophythen Plants first. The bird gets sunflower seed in the vacant garden 687. Rob helps me to unearth the 30 year old rose that we promised to safe for Barbara who had her garden for 48 years. People come into the Vulcan Areal to take garden materials. I draw gestures of the plants movement in the environment. Martina replants Barbara’s rose into her garden 921.