Archive for the ‘compost’ tag
Final Day of EXCESS NYC at Artspace, New Haven
EXCESS NYC at Artspace, New Haven, CT
Tomorrow Brooke and I will be riding the food rescue and compost bike around New Haven collecting food for the final event of “Vagaries of the Commons.” Big thanks to curator Sarah Fritchey for lining up participating restaurants and vendors giving us food that would otherwise be thrown away!
Turntable Garden and Cafe, Helsinki
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 NYC Documentation
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.