The interdisciplinary project CONNECTING ECOSYSTEMS aims to develop and foster a dialogue around sustainability, ecological and social justice within today’s fast changing and globally entangled environments. As a post documenta fifteen initiative, the approach is to make friends, not art and to build relationships by collaborating in artistic practices. Thus, building and strengthening a community around community gardening/farming and social questions by doing events, spending time and working together.
Throughout this ongoing process of connecting and sharing the margins of CONNECTING ECOSYSTEMS are always porous and welcoming to every new input and friend: In entering conversations we can learn and build together.
In exploring these questions in workshops, talks and artworks our point of view remains focussed on specific localities impacted by global networks. Being founded in Kassel by Edible City e.V. the project visits and establishes meeting points of gardening interventions within the cities of Jatiwangi, Jakarta and Dhaka to exchange local practices across diverse communities and landscapes.
Now, that the project is over one year old, we are coming back to Kassel to harvest and share all knowledge collected and to invite friends from Indonesia and Bangladesh to collaborate again.
This photo series, captured using an old 35mm film camera from Canon, offers a close and intimate perspective on the diverse landscapes encountered during our travels with CONNECTING ECOSYSTEMS.
The documentary “Community Garden Hasnabad” offers a compelling portrayal of the collaborative efforts of CONNECTING ECOSYSTEMS to cultivate a vibrant green space in the heart of Dhaka.
After weeks of work everything was set to plant. So we bought vegetables and flowers, enough for all the kids to plant at least one and prepared a joyful event to celebrate all the work and the opening of the garden together.
After our one-month-long stay at Britto, we felt the need to communicate the works of our residency in a showcase at Britto Space. A lot had happened: much work had gone into the public community garden in Hasnabad, meeting the neighborhood every day, and also noticing the social changes beside the physical transformation of the place. In our exhibit, we focused on talking about these notions of change around the garden within the capital of Bangladesh – the city under construction.
We found our spot on the riverside Buriganga on a strip of state-owned land covered with a dusty football ground and some banana plants. When we first walked through the narrow alley between a cabin and a house to enter the field, already a crowd of kids followed us curiously. It was the perfect spot: already engaged by the local youth and visible for all people living around.
In this interview, we delve into the world of urban gardening and community collaboration with Juli (Julian Rizki), one of the Co-Founders of Selarasa Food Lab in Jakarta. As an expanding network of urban gardens, Selarasa Food Lab plays a vital role in reshaping the food system of Jakarta, especially amidst the challenges posed by the pandemic.
