This post is not exactly about reading books, although books are present, but about reading an installation and a major art event through the lens of permaculture. The photo above is from the project Unpacking My Library at the 57th Venice Biennale. Inspired by Walter Benjiamin’s 1931 essay, this project allowed all participating artists (including dead […]

With a few recommendations, we went to the Sydney French Film Festival to see Tomorrow, a 2015 documentary by Melanie Laurent and Cyril Dion. The film presents five chapters, each telling a local activist story that addresses the global challenges of Agricultue, Energy, Economy, Democracy, and Education. Predictably, the agriculture chapter was most interesting to […]

We are reading this book because Anna Tsing’s book Friction had such an effect on the collaboration that is Mapping Edges. This book is about the most valuable mushroom in the world, the Matsutake, the commodity chains within which it exists, and its relationship with humans, trees and others. Through its ability to nurture trees, […]

We read this debut novel by Briohny Doyle for our speculative fiction book club. It is set in a not-too-distant future when environmental catastrophe is completely normal and immersive cinema about disaster is the most popular entertainment. The protagonist is Max Galleon, a filmmaker and family man who can’t remember anything without his implanted digital […]

This book, Marrickville Backyards, was necessary preparatory reading for our field work in Marrickville. Published in 2001 by Marrickville Community History Group, with only a small print run, this book is not easy to get your hands on. We found it through Sydney’s much-loved Gould’s Book Arcade. Our second hand copy comes with a note on […]

We read Jessica Barnes entry ‘Gluten’ in the Lexicon for an Anthropocene Yet Unseen, published by Cultural Anthropology. Barnes begins with a deceptively simple question: what does the Anthropocene taste like? This is an excellent starting point to imagine a series of material, semiotic, and sensory entanglements and assemblages generated in the Anthropocene (if we want […]

I just finished reading ‘A Philosophy of Walking’ for obvious reasons. Mapping Edges are avid walkers, and philosophers of walking. The book is a wonderful meditation on what walking does for thinking. Gros begins with the proposition that walking is not a sport, and then he meanders through history (albeit mostly Western male history), telling […]

I don’t often get boating invitations. This week, when Clare Britton asked my to climb aboard the newly renovated ‘Sally’ at the Tempe Pier, I didn’t hesitate. As part of her research project A Week on the Cooks River, Clare is spending time observing, describing, rowing the Cooks. AC: So can you tell me what […]

America is full of superlatives. I’m usually not seduced. But the biggest rooftop garden in the world got my attention.     As a working farm, Brooklyn Grange is only open to visitors once a week, on Wednesdays (if you visit NYC keep this in mind) when they offer a guided tour. So, with my mother […]

This is a short documentation of the first Mapping Edges walk around Marrickville while in residence at Frontyard in March 2016. It shows some key elements of our methodology: we walk slowly, and analyse plant life and the way plants design the urban environment. Also it often rains.