Many New Yorkers know about Chashama, the arts organization Anita Durst founded in 1995 to help artists and curators find underused spaces to house temporary exhibitions, performance spaces and studios. The organization relies heavily on the Durst family’s history in New York City real estate, and acts as a diplomatic Robin Hood of real estate. Based on the idea that empty property does not always serve the interests of landlords and developers, some have been willing to donate their spaces on a short-term basis. And through these direct space donations and many public and private grants, Chashama is able to offer spaces to artists at subsidized rent rates or for free.

This socialism of the arts – from each according to his ability and to each according to his need — helps sustain a diverse, dynamic and provocative cultural environment in New York, in the face of a disappointing lack of affordable space for creative production and dissemination in the city. Chashama currently has three galleries and two window spaces in Manhattan, and two studios spaces in the outer boroughs. Because of the lowered barriers to entry into these spaces, exhibitions run the gamut from independent video game arcade curators to nomadic fine artists to all-ages DIY concert mavens, all within a few months. Likewise, the diversity of audiences that are linked through this one organization is astonishing.

Blithedale Romance, installation view | Photo: Suko Presseau

The Blithedale Romance, currently on view at the Chashama gallery at 217 East 42nd Street, is a retrospective exhibition of monthly groups of artists from last summer’s chaNorth residency in Pine Plains, New York, curated by the 2010 chaNorth residency manager, Veronica Kavass. chaNorth is the pastoral corollary to the Chashama project in New York City, giving artists space and time to which they might not otherwise have access. While in New York City, Chashama offers artists and curators the scarce resource of real estate, in Pine Plains they are given the rare opportunity to live the country life: white farmhouse, meadow, fireflies, hammock, weather-worn barn shed, just the right-sized pond, and a bikeable backroad to town. This idyllic setting is complemented by the hard work inherent to agricultural life. Residents are expected to contribute to the productivity of McEnroe Organic Farm — also a Durst property — by planting, hoeing, picking, and generally getting their hands dirty. In return, the farm is the primary source of food for the house, and residents cook and eat their locally sourced meals together daily. It’s a bit “hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner…” so to speak.

“Power Lines” by Brandon Neubauer

Both the excitement of displacement and the physical routine of chaNorth foster an intense communalism and interdependency. The residency aspires to the tradition of rural utopian experiments; the title The Blithedale Romance comes from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s fictionalized account of his time at the Brook Farm experiment. Transcendentalists, shakers, and hippies have all sought to build communities outside of society as both protest and inspiration, be their motives religious, creative, or political. The geographic removal from cities and towns symbolizes a distance in ideas and ways of living and relating to one another. The rural setting explores alternate venues for inspiration, productivity, health, community, and sustainability.

The new twist with chaNorth (and its newer neighbor, The Wassaic Project), is that it is essentially framed by an urban art world that supplies artists, funders, administrators and visitors to the project. The day-to-day of chaNorth may be a model of pastoral living, but it would not exist without the city a train ride away. That’s not to say that it wouldn’t be possible. But this relationship between ChaNorth and the city generates questions regarding how the residency functions as an outlet and support for individual artists and for existing creative networks in the city itself. Many of the artists return home to their respective cities feeling refreshed, with finished work, a new local network of creative professionals, some recipes, a book deal maybe, and firsthand knowledge of where garlic scapes come from.

Left to right: “Harvest, Skin, Cayote” by Suko Presseau, “Pioneers (Assembly)” by  Cosme Herrera, “Departure” by Yuko Oda

The Blithedale Romance is on view at the Chashama gallery at 217 East 42nd Street through February 28, 2011. You may have missed Sara Bouchard’s performance of her new song cycle and Brook Stephenson’s group reading of his intense coming-of-age-as-a-person-of-color novella, but you can still catch that summer feeling in four fantastic films, a letter of intrigue and mystery, bright and colorful multimedia pieces, bold paintings and bucolic photographs, and woodcarvings-cum-mapping projects. Artists on view are Emily Bolevice, Aneikit Bonnel, Murray Dwertmann, Yuko Oda, Cosme Herrera, Stephen Holding, Elias Melad, Brandon Neubauer, Suko Presseau, Ryan Schneider, Eliza Stamps, Linsey Wallace, Christine Wang, Seldon Yuan.

Human Dam” (video still)  by Murray Dwertman

Sarah Snider is the Executive Assistant at the Architectural League of New York. She has lived in London, Paris, and the Bay Area, and she works with Co-op NYC, a network for NYC based housing cooperatives.

The views expressed here are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.

Eagle Street Rooftop Farm, Greenpoint, Brooklyn | Copyright Adam Gol

What do you want from your city’s soil? There are many homegrown and local agriculture ideas in Living Concrete/Carrot City, an exhibition currently on view at Parsons The New School for Design, and they’re worth a look. The projects range from farm visits for families to bodega research, education and empowerment. There are mapping projects that do the basic chore of charting urban gardens and farms, and there are maps that gather information about harvests and how they translate into economic terms. There are rainwater harvesting kits and partnerships on water. There are sustainable food projects for kids in the Bronx and for adults on the Lower East Side (PDF). There are biological cocktails made out of frogs and gelatin, and there are sculptures of apples visualizing their carbon footprint. There is the ubiquitous traveling planter bag. And there are bees: beehives, bee sound projects, and bee videos.

The Living Concrete/Carrot City project is described as “a cross-institutional dialogue” between the newly produced Living Concrete, co-curated by Nevin Cohen and Radhika Subramaniam and featuring work by faculty and students at Parsons, Eugene Lang College and other parts of the New School, and Carrot City: Designing for Urban Agriculture, an initiative of the Department of Architectural Sciences at Ryerson University in Toronto that came to fruition under the green thumbs of Mark Gorgolewski, June Komisar and Joe Nasr. Wall panels feature some of the projects shown at Ryerson, international in scope and conceived by students and design professionals alike, which are also listed in detail on the Carrot City website. The projects are organized by category: City, Community & Knowledge, Housing, Rooftops, and Products. We should hope that NYC designers will be inspired by projects from Berlin or other cities where urban agriculture used to be a necessity and has only become a privilege in its own right quite recently.

One of the things that is hard to reconcile in the realm of urban agriculture is the seeming lack of cohesiveness between certain groups ostensibly seeking similar outcomes. The accretion of projects in Living Concrete/Carrot City serves first and foremost to put everyone on the same page. In that vein, what becomes interesting is the partnership between Parsons and Ryerson. Nevin Cohen and Radhika Subramaniam knew an important piece of urban agriculture documentation when they saw it and decided to follow suit with their own version of the show, adding more projects, people, and media attention to the movement.

A pamphlet has been published to accompany the exhibition, which emphasizes the growing role of the university in the development of urban agricultural ideas and initiatives; Scott Stringer’s participation in the Food and Climate Summit hosted by NYU and Just Food last December is exemplary of this. The idea of urban farming as an educational utility is inescapable. The exhibition can be lauded for its efforts to create a visible, public platform for pedagogy, something that targeted local organizations sometimes miss. And the show is indeed down-to-earth, in the sense that it is not looking for the perfect vertical farm or the tomato of the future. Rather, they are testing how the existing urban landscape can be used to challenge the agro-industrial complex.

New York Tribune, April 29, 1917

Urban agriculture is not a new phenomenon. My friend Daniel who is trying to put a mobile vegetable garden in front of City Hall sends me articles from his research into the history of urban agriculture in the US. The latest was about an architects corps managed by our very own Architectural League in 1917 to till and cultivate 40 acres of urban farmland. Architects were encouraged to donate half of their vacation time over 3 to 4 months during the growing season to cultivating fields, or to pay the equivalent of $21 towards the effort. Over 100 responded for work, with the women in the offices handling the administrative work and the Mayor’s committee distributing the harvest.

Symbolically these things say a lot, but they are fraught with sexism, economic inequality, pro bono labor and problems of access. And what is sustained as a result of these efforts — before, during and after? Things like efficiency, value, health (one of the projects uses PVC planters – not on my plate, please), and inclusion need to be further investigated, which is why the Design Trust’s Five Borough Farm project exhibited is so important. Five Borough’s analysis of existing urban farming initiatives and the development of metrics for grading success will be key in assessing the long term viability of urban agriculture as a source of food, in addition to its pedagogical and community-building aspects.

But where do we turn journalism into activism, a documentation of projects into policy? The DIY or DIT (do-it-together) component is lacking in the project selection. Many require a city agency, a student (if not professional) design team, in part due to permits required and acquisition of land. But I wonder where Atom Cianfarani is, with her green-it-yourself roofing kit, and all the guerrilla gardeners out there — does their harvest count in the Farming Concrete total? I am of the opinion that urban agriculture is not a fad and will continue to inform community design and city-based health campaigns, but some people think the urban agriculture design trend will be exhausted, expire and we will move on.

But even if the urban agriculture design movement falls flat, the DIY/DIT urban agriculture movement will continue to grow. There is an enormous sense of community that goes with it. Picking up a CSA share once a week and exchanging recipes with people who are eating the same things is fun. Dropping off compost at the community garden is rewarding. Fresh herbs from the backyard are tasty and free.

In the meantime, while the urban agriculture design movement is booming, Living Concrete/Carrot City is presenting a tremendous opportunity to see some great designers and speakers who know a lot about these things, from New York City and beyond, every Wednesday night at the Parsons gallery on 13th Street. You can download the public program schedule here to join in the conversation. There is also a question-answer board in the gallery and a place to post fliers about your own upcoming food and urban agriculture events – don’t miss it.

LIVING CONCRETE/CARROT CITY
October 1–December 15, 2010
Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery
Sheila C. Johnson Design Center
66 Fifth Avenue at 13th Street
New York, NY

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Sarah Snider is the Executive Assistant at the Architectural League of New York. She has lived in London, Paris, and the Bay Area, and she works with Co-op NYC, a network for NYC based housing cooperatives.

The views expressed here are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.

Drinks with performance artists tend to keep you on your toes. You’re always wondering if something they say, the way they walk, or the thing they’re holding in their left hand might be part of the act: a highly scripted, reactive, and meaningful performance intended for your immediate apprehension and interpretation in the context of decades of work. Take performance artist Danielle Freakley, who last week launched a piece spanning the next year of her life, wherein she’ll speak solely through quotes. This will be “her normal mode of speech, in everyday public life”.

Yet Guy Ben Ner’s film, “Drop the Monkey,” which showed at the Performa 09 hub space at 41 Cooper Square, reminds us of the danger of mixing art and life, and the reception for Performa’s Live Architecture launch heeded its warning. It was booze and business, and one last chance for a good look at the commission constructed by nOffice of Berlin. The interior, consisting of plywood paneling, with clean and inventive angles, and a stadium-like staircase climbing an entire wall, figures as a place where imagination can thrive. RoseLee Goldberg, historian, author, critic, and curator of Performa, wanted the space to function as instant architecture, a just-add-water performance space. A built-in cube for radio and TV recording features a wall that pulls down for use as a stage. Flavin-esque flourescents parcel out light, playing with perspective. There is a secret door, a kiosk, a screening room – it is a larger-than-life wooden toybox.

Other than some A/V recording, nOffice’s space was not used for performances this year: Performa, says Goldberg, has always been about the city, and moving theater out of traditional, faded venues into spaces that add to, rather than detract from, performance. As Vito Acconci demonstrated with his Following Piece, presented by the Architectural League of New York in 1969, the city as venue increases performative possibilities, while traditional theaters constrain performance. Goldberg believes in performance as a much-needed activism on architecture, and she deems the recession to be as good a time as any to enact this activism, this curating for the city. The hub space, she said, was always just “a nice idea.”

Now, the hub space incarnate performs, itself, as a place for ideas. At the reception to launch Performa’s first architecture commission, Goldberg invited a conversation about the future of architecture at Performa. Enthusiastic guests ranged from Markus Miessen of nOffice, to the An Architektur crew, to practicing architects, to aspiring performers and young urbanists. The AIA and the Van Alen have already signed on to take part in the dialog, and if the conversation grows as planned – with the aide of a few fundraising efforts – we should have a lot to look forward to come Performa 11.

Earlier on in the evening, as I entered 41 Cooper Square, I heard a passing neighbor remark to an equally besotted companion, “Oh, so they’ve almost finished this one.” He must’ve mistaken the plywood for construction materials for the Thom Mayne building.

As with all review and opinion pieces posted on Urban Omnibus, the views expressed are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.

Sarah Snider is the Executive Assistant at the Architectural League of New York. She has lived in London, Paris, and the Bay Area, and she now lives at Treehaus Brooklyn.