The Grow Project – Art and Urban Agriculture in Vancouver

Maria and I met up with Holly Schmidt on the waterfront in False Creek, Vancouver, where we were shown the beginnings of a wonderful garden art project.

Exploring urban art and agriculture

Located in Vancouver’s “greenest development”, the Olympic Village, Grow explores sustainability issues through a series of walks, workshops and creative experiments in urban agriculture. Walks led by artist, Holly Schmidt and invited guests from architecture; design and the humanities focus on the challenges faced by rapidly growing and changing cities. Workshops invite people to imagine new possibilities for agriculture in the city through inventive prototype building to support the production of food in the urban environment.

Activities will culminate in the Bulkhead Urban Agriculture Lab. Sitting on the periphery of public parks, unde­veloped and bristling with remnants of the industrial past, the Lab experiments with transforming a vacant lot into a space for growing. Taking up the provisional state of this site, recycled materials will be used to con­struct a series of sculptural platforms for growing food.

Grow is led by Holly Schmidt a Vancouver-based artist who has a participatory art practice and an extensive background in public programming. Her work involves a range of research activities that overlap with the nat­ural sciences, sustainable food systems and agriculture.

See their website here.

New Community Garden at Olympic Village spotted

Just a stone throw from the Grow Project is a not yet open “traditionally designed” community garden in the Olympic Village neighbourhood.

And another just under the Cambie Street bridge

This garden was established some months ago and already has a waiting list.