CitySpinning » workshop

“invisible farm @ jamghat,” day 5

Prayas Abhinav — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:28:21 +0000

Day 5: containers (all kinds… bought from a flea market), sow seeds, audio blog activities, work on the “public fruit map” @ googlemaps

From a nearby flea market I managed to get some petis (wooden cartons used for transporting and storing fruits and vegetables. With a few modifications, the petis were usable as containers to grow plants in. We spread gunny bag at the bottom of the petis, put a mixture of soil and compost in it and then sowed the seeds.

View Delhi Public Fruit in a larger map
Photos

“invisible farm @ jamghat,” day 4

Prayas Abhinav — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 06:48:09 +0000

Day 4: prepared more soil, invite a gardener to visit, sow seeds in baskets + pots, post the group’s experience on the audio blog, talk about the “public fruit map (delhi).”

From the nearby Qutub nursery, I requested the head gardener, Ram Shankar, to come over to the shelter and demonstrate and explain to us the process of sowing the vegetable seeds and preparing the seedlings. I am interested in seeing if I can get the children connected to the gardener community over the long term. I see a lot of potential there for exchange of knowledge and skills.

Later we started talking about making a map of fruit which the children had seen or eaten in the public spaces of Delhi. The children described jamun, banana, amrud and mango. They also described temples, gurudwaras where they go food for free on a regular basis. We worked on a map of many of these places on Day 5.

“invisible farm @ jamghat,” day 2 and 3

Prayas Abhinav — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 13:31:52 +0000

Day 2: a simple discussion on nutrition, diet and vegetables. in simple flower-pots we sowed chilli, radish and spinach seeds.

Day 3: get baskets, setup baskets, get containers made, talk to neighborhood gardeners, put audio recordings on the Internet

Read more about the workshop at http://st.ation.in/wiki/projects:invisible-farm

Mitti Chakkar

Prayas Abhinav — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 08:30:37 +0000

Mitti Chakkar (Hindi), Soil circle (English), exploring urban soil ecology

An effort to sample/archive soil from public spaces around Delhi, grow mustard plants (sarson) in it. Sarson acts as a phytoremediation agent and cleans the soil of toxins like Lead by storing it in its cells instead.

For a detailed description and find out more about the effort go here: http://st.ation.in/wiki/projects:soil-workshop

I will post some sketches from my note-book soon.

updated: September 8th, 2008

At Urban Typhoon Koliwada (March 16-22)

Prayas Abhinav — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 15:59:54 +0000

Zack and me will be at the Urban Typhoon workshop in Dharavi, Mumbai till the 22nd of March. The Urban Typhoon workshop is being organized to “brainstorm on the present and future of Koliwada, Dharavi, at a time when the city’s players are planning a massive transformation of the entire neighbourhood. [It] is a global experiment in participatory design. It is directly connected to the various communities of Dharavi and its grassroots community groups.”

URL: Urban Typhoon