Structural Patterns

The People’s Climate March “Warm Up” at La Casita Verde – come and make posters for the march!

Come out Saturday to the green space at Division and Bedford, Brooklyn – La Casita Verde – for a fun afternoon of poster making for Sunday’s People’s Climate March. 1-4pm Saturday, September 20th at 451 Bedford.

Donate money to help bring one of Sam Van Aken trees to Brooklyn! Artist Sam Van Aken has donated one of his trees from the project “The Tree of 40 Fruit” to the South Williamsburg community garden La Casita Verde. Now they just need $2500 to cover the transport cost from Syracuse to Williamsburg. Donate on line.

An unused railway turntable

The transformed railway turntable, now a garden and cafe

In August, Brooke and I had lunch at the Turntable Cafe located in old railroad yards of Helsinki. We were primarily doing research regarding urban composting and gardening. These railroad yards had been abandoned and in 2012, one of the railway turntables was transformed into a greenhouse and rebranded as Turntable, an experiment in urban gardening. During the summer months, every Friday lunch is available at Turntable and the food that is served is made from what is grown at the garden. Turntable is a great example of industrial wasteland being transformed into a productive area by a small group of people. The food was delicious and inexpensive.

The transformed railway turntable, now a garden and cafe

The interior garden

There is water collection below the structure

Even shopping carts have been transformed into mobile gardens

The greenhouse built around the turntable i-beams can easily be deconstructed. I found more information regarding Turntable on the portfolio site of Paiva Raivio, one of the artists who collaborated on the transformation of the railway turntable in to the garden and cafe, she states

Turntable is an urban garden, cafe, greenhouse and an open, public space situated in Pasila´s historical railway yard. It was set up by Dodo´s activists: Jaakko Lehtonen, Kirmo Kivelä, Joseph Mulcahy and myself.

The spot is where Dodo´s (an environmental NGO based in Helsinki) urban farming movement begun when gardeners took over a wasteland in 2009. In 2012 we transformed Turntable into an urban farming test lab and source for learning and inspiration. During it´s first year in action Turntable has offered various workshops, events and locally grown food in the Turntable-cafe. The garden also has a beehive, dry toilet, composts, cob oven and solar panels to produce energy.

Go to Paivi Raivio’s page on Kääntöpöytä / Turntable Urban Garden to read more and see photos.

Turntable also has honeybees

EXCESS at Stamford’s Franklin Street Works

Terri Smith, the director of Franklin Street Works, a not for profit art space in Stamford CT, invited EXCESS NYC to Stamford for the city’s first Art Walk. The food rescue and composting bike was installed at an empty store front in downtown Stamford along with a poster installation that reveals some of the realities underlying EXCESS. And for a one day event on Saturday June 15th, the bike circulated downtown Stamford to collect discarded edible food that was eaten at a picnic in Franklin Street Works’ backyard.

Food contributed by Stamford farmer’s market, Napa & Company and Lorca Cafe

The big food collection occurred as EXCESS happened to ride into the Bedford Street farmer’s market as the vendors were breaking down. We went from vendor to vendor and asked if they had food that they would be throwing away. One vendor invited us to take everything! We got boxes of fruits and vegetables from him, amazing avocados and bell peppers that would not have been good for another day. We made a great avocado spread for the evening. Other fruit and vegetable vendors gave us bags of fruits.

We also collected a small amount of compost. It was all the discarded fruit and seeds that vendors cut up for people to try that were discarded. It appeared that a lot more could have been collected if it wasn’t already packed in trash bags with other garbage.

The few restaurants that had agreed to put food aside for us either forgot or could not contribute. However two businesses entirely came through – Napa and Company at 75 Broad St. Adam the chef is great, understands composting and food waste and was eager to contribute.

Leyla, the owner of Lorca Cafe on Bedford was also entirely on board. Her employees were expecting us with bags of baked goods, a real treat for everyone visiting the gallery. Tomorrow is the final day of the storefront installation.

EXCESS NYC downtown Stamford store front installation

EXCESS poster installation at downtown Stamford storefront

EXCESS poster installation, Stamford CT.

Sonja Sharp of DNAinfo.com was excited to discover to whom the compost and food rescue bike at the Sterling lot belonged. She got in touch with Brooke and I and ran a story on the project – Bodega Bicycle the Vehicle of Choice for Crown Heights Food Waste Crusaders. It’s perfect timing as we’ve completed our first two weeks of picking up coffee grounds from Lincoln Station.

EXCESS is a community-based art project that investigates the large amounts of organic waste in urban centers and creatively employs new tactics to divert food from landfill and back to people to consume or compost. Can we make smarter urban infrastructure where edible food gets eaten, organic waste is turned into compost, compost is used to remediate contaminated lots, vacant lots are transformed into gardens and cities save money while reducing greenhouse emissions? EXCESS NYC is currently active in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

The food rescue and composting bike will be circulating in downtown Stamford, CT in conjunction with the exhibition Strange Invitation at Franklin Street Works.

Today at 10:30am Brooke and I are presenting our neighborhood composting project at the Just Food Conference as part of MAKING ART WITH FOOD IN MIND (ENGAGING NYC COMMUNITIES) panel. We’ve made an initial video cut documenting the project thus far that we’ll be presenting as an introduction and then briefly describe where we are at and how we are moving forward with EXCESS NYC.

EXCEDENTES/EXCESS 2011-2013 from Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga on Vimeo.

About the panel:
10:30-11:45am
Food & Finance High School (Sign outside of the building reads Park West High School)
525 West 50th Street, New York, NY

MAKING ART WITH FOOD IN MIND (ENGAGING NYC COMMUNITIES)
For centuries artists have given us new ways of seeing the world around us through the lens of food. The last decade has been especially rich as artists respond to the challenges and concerns of feeding ourselves by creating models that are local, sustainable and community-oriented. In this workshop, visual artists will offer practical advice on using food creatively while fostering social change.

Speakers: Atom Cianfarani, Co-Author of A Roof Grows in Brooklyn: The Do-It-Yourself Green Roof Workbook; Jason Gaspar, Wyckoff Farmhouse Museum; Lisa Gross, Boston Tree Party; Brooke Singer & Ricardo Miranda Zuniga, collaborating artists on “Excess NYC”; Tattfoo Tan, artist