Pad (Dec 2019)
Becoming Garden. Notes on the Creation of a Planetary Garden
Abstract
The creation of a Planetary Garden in the ZEN district of Palermo represents a challenge on different levels and at different scales, which affects the nature of the city and the human vision of nature in the city. On the basis of a series of consecutive workshops, carried out before and during Manifesta 12, a garden was born and at the same time a community of gardeners, passionate about transforming an abandoned, empty space, out of the institutional management. The experience of this collective work for the construction of the common good reveals both the operational capacity and effectiveness of spontaneous groups, as well as the difficulties in finding synergy with the community. Through the constant involvement of local citizens, the project aims to take care of a place, to find resilient and lasting solutions for a long-term impact, to create soil fertility conditions in the changing Mediterranean climate, to host biodiversity and to reveal the natural ability of plants to inspire solutions for contemporary habitat. Will it be possible to continue experimenting with this planetary garden? What prospects are available for the future of this garden? Do they allow you to create a method, a series, a network? What does it mean to become “planetary gardeners” and to conceive, collect and maintain a new idea of shared space?
