home growing

“il faut cultiver son jardin”, voltaire’s candide asserts: one must cultivate one’s garden. a simple, perhaps even generic statement that functions as a metaphor for a premise that is at once political and philosophical. yet, the premise is not always easy to put into practice: instead of preoccupying ourselves with grandiose metaphysical questions and allowing ourselves to get distracted by what is anyhow out of reach, let us first tend to our own environment, our own situation, and the people in it. the statement has an obvious meliorist ring to it and, clearly, forgetting about the larger picture has dangers of its own (we may want to forget about the totality, but the totality certainly does not forget about us). nonetheless, it is clear that, unless we want to wait for a revolution, cultivating our gardens – micropolitics, DIY, anything grassroots – is certainly the best place to start. like candide in voltaire’s book, we need to grow ourselves a degree of practical optimism.

tire potato planters

Posted on 02/11/2011 by rogier

name: Project 181 / age: 45 & 48 / profession: collaborators / location: Atlanta / weekday: monday / reference: discarded tires used to vertically grow potatoes. Each planting is a response to a situation of precarity for our friends, family and community.

grow-bathing

Posted on 18/03/2019 by marc

name: Mar / age: 27 / profession: art student / location: Barcelona / reference: gorgeous project I really love to share private domestic spaces, so much info between rooms! 😉

not going to the supermarket

Posted on 26/08/2014 by marc

name: llibreria La caníbal sccl / age: 6 months / profession: bookstore clerks / location: barcelona / weekday: tuesday / reference: store local farmers’ ecologic vegetables for urban customers to pick them up. if you have a urban space with a regular opening schedule, offer it at no cost to local farmers/customers as a picking point. and let monsanto burn in hell.

gardening

Posted on 05/01/2012 by marc

name: esmee / age: 26 / profession: artist & student / location: eindhoven / weekday: saturday / reference: volkstuin

Cultivating

Posted on 02/11/2011 by rogier

name: Torkel / age: 30 / profession: cultural analyst & writer / location: Stockholm / weekday: saturday /reference: Photograph from the garden of the house where I grew up, taken by my father or my mother in 1982 or 1983.

Planting

Posted on 02/11/2011 by rogier

name: Torkel / age: 30 / profession: cultural analyst and writer / location: Stockholm / weekday: saturday / reference: photograph from the garden of the house where I grew up, taken by my father or mother in 1982 or 1983.

gardening

Posted on 02/11/2011 by rogier

werker 3 / domestic worker photographer network

a collective and political representation of domestic space open for constant improvement and study. browse & contribute!

home growing

tire potato planters

grow-bathing

not going to the supermarket

gardening

Cultivating

Planting

gardening