We recently visited the Wayside Chapel’s Rooftop Garden in Kings Cross. With views across the parklands and the CBD, the 200 square metre garden is filled with over 50 different varieties of organic fruit, herbs and vegetables. It has rainwater tanks, solar panels, worm farms, a compost system and bee-hives. The gardens have a strong […]

Reposted from The Australian Interestingness Thank you Thomas Lee. In the introduction to James Hull and Bede Brennan’s Shit Gardens, the authors spell out an ambivalence concerning aesthetic evaluation that is core to the concept and production of the book. For the authors, ‘shit’ describes gardens which might initially appear “inexplicably bad”, then, with time, come to […]

Today we presented at the Asian Studies Conference of Australia. Our paper abstract: Plants and the City in Singapore As food security becomes an increasingly prioritized political issue in Southeast Asia, governments across the region are considering alternatives to rural agriculture. This paper considers a number of urban farming initiatives in Singapore as sites of social innovation […]

Last week I visited Bumi Langit Farm, located in a hilly area in Imogiri old town, precisely at Jalan Mangunan KM. 3, Giriloyo village, Wukirsari, Imogiri, Bantul, Yogyakarta. This hilly area is the beginning of the Gunung Kidul hills line, an area known for its long dry season. Located on 350 m above sea level, […]

Rina: I grew up in Blacktown, where my parents settled after coming from Holland. My father was a very keen vegetable grower because he wanted to grow enough for the family, and we had a big family. So my gardening skills came from him. It was mainly vegetables, he wasn’t that interested in flowers, only […]

This is an extraordinary artist book, and the first release by micro-publishing venture Cloudship Press. The entire book is hand drawn by Tessa Zettel and Susie Nelson, printed at Marrickville’s Rizzeria, and sewn together with needle and thread. It is partly a documentation of a project by the same name, Making Time, that has been […]

Food Democracy is a unique book in its direct approach to the politics of food and its commitment to creative practice as an avenue for social change. It deals with an increasingly important issue that is central to most global political struggles of the present and future. If you need to quickly catch up on […]

This book took me a lot longer to read than I expected. Not because it is in any way a drag, but because it is many strolls rather than an epic journey. It’s a bit like a really delicious box of  very rich chocolates that you dip into rather than eating all at once. I […]

I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and abroad, and their continuing connection to culture, community, land, sea and sky. I pay my respect to Elders past, present and future. This ‘reading’ is actually listening to an interview recorded as part of the ABC series ‘Conversations’ with Richard Fidler. ‘The Secret History of […]

Aine: We are not really avid gardeners. It’s happenstance. We try things. If a plant doesn’t work, we move it somewhere else. Then we try something else. I enjoy it and it’s never felt like a chore because it’s just happened. I move things around and there’s a space, and I think, ‘I’ll put in […]