Dedicated to critical cultural production at the intersection of art and activism.

We cover artists from around the globe whose work explores and realizes social change. Our goal is to provide a narrative about these activist efforts while simultaneously participating in them. Maintained by The Groundswell Collective since 2007.

The Little Dig, And Things of That Nature: Gardening Urban Intervention

James David Morgan wrote this post at 11:11 am on May 8th, 2009.

During the week of May 11-16, part of Boston’s Financial District will become a public soil lab and work area, as a crew assembled by Gina Badger works to create the Little Dig, a temporary non-monetary economy based on dirt.

Gina Badger, with Shovel
Gina, with Shovel

As it foregrounds questions about waste, resources, and the creation of value, the Little Dig is appropriately set in the shadow of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and atop the city’s infamous highway megaproject to which the work’s title refers, the Big Dig.

Map of the Little Dig Site

This is the first in a series of projects by Badger that take the actions of gardening as strategic points of departure in order to develop a new vocabulary of urban intervention.

The Little Dig will be accompanied by a reading room at the Boston Centre for the Arts’ Mills Gallery, as a part of the MIT Visual Arts Program exhibition And Things of That Nature. The reading room will consist of 50 volumes and an annotated bibliography that extend and are extended by the performance of The Little Dig.

Interested in participating?  Leave a note in the comment section, and we’ll get in touch!

Schedule for the Little Dig

Monday May 11 9:00AM
Soil drop-off

12:00-2:00PM
pH and NPK testing + Sampling

Tuesday May 12 5:00-7:00PM
Demonstration: “What type of soil is this?” + Adding soil amendments

Wednesday May 13 12:00-2:00PM
Demonstration: “How did all this stuff get in the soil? (Soil as filter)”

Thursday May 14 5:00-7:00PM
Spreading + Drying

Friday May 15 12:00-2:00PM
Demonstration: “What’s living in this soil?” + Screening + Final testing

6:00-9:00PM
Opening of And Things of That Nature at the Mills Gallery (539 Tremont St)

Saturday May 16 12:00-6:00PM
Soil giveaway

Related posts:

  1. Radical Nature: Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet
  2. Design Studio for Social Intervention Open House with SmartMeme
  3. Define “Urban Wilderness” at ElectroSmog with the Urban Wilderness Action Center
  4. Functional Utopian Manicures for the Urban Survivalist
  5. Command-C: Urban Computing Against Gentrification


More on Call for Participation, Economics, Friends & Allies, Local, Performance

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