Tattfoo | S.O.S. Mobile Garden

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S.O.S. Mobile Garden

#sosMobileGarden is a discarded shopping cart retro fit into a mobile edible garden that can be lock to a sign post or be parade to engage the public.

Discarded shopping cart can be found everywhere, especially in low income neighborhood and housing projects that spreads across the city. Pushed by individuals who survive through economies of recycling. These wire frame vehicles stand in for consumption in excess and as much as the objects they contain, all seem to be subject to the same fated disposability. It is a sign of homelessness, of desperate measure, urban decay and neglect.

The location where one can find this urban artifact also point out a piece of land that is unused or a corner in our urban sprawl that is out of sight. This land can be and should be better used. Why are they just there and deserted? Who owns the land? Who have the rights to use the land?

A discarded shopping cart is the sign of our times. The collapse of financial institution and big corporation. The recession is cause by our excessive and irresponsible buying habits. Foreclosure of real estate, cause the working poor to be homeless and suburbanization cause the abandonment of our inner city neighborhood.

Mobile Garden is also inspired by the ghost bike memorial that is around the city to mark the place where a bicyclist was killed. Now Mobile Garden can be a marker, a reminder to the scarce of land, it’s right and usage. May be we can start to think about how to repurpose our urban environment.

An edible garden is also a sign of our time. The lack of food in the world. The tainted food supply, cause by industrial gardening. The rise of the organic movement. The cost of producing and transporting (carbon footprint) the crops and produce, and the effect it had on the environment. The disease of over consumption and the need to purchase inferior quality product that will be thrown away is indeed need to be eradicated. The logo of big box retailer that is imprinted on this shopping cart remind us that the resources wasted on transportation from raw material to production to retail, the lot that it sit on, the parking lot that burn under the sky, the car the consumer drive there.

Mobile Garden is raising further questions rather than resolving it. This action came to generate further actions and led to an increasingly open structure, where it is important to continually invite and allow the input of others, to keep tense the core elements as a narrative of multiple voices and directions.

The Fixer's Manifesto

1. If it's broken, fix it! Because everyday practical problem solving is the most beautiful form of creativity there is.

2. If it's not broken, improve it. A small, clever tweak can improve how something works for years to come.

3. Give your Products a longer life. If we double the life of our stuff, we halve what goes to landfill.

4. Fixing means freedom and independence. As a fixer, you don't need to worry about wear and tear.
Nothing stays new, so forget perfection.

5. Resist trends and needless upgrades. They fuel our throwaway culture.

6. Don’t let companies treat you as a passive consumer. Every time we spend money, we vote for
the kinds of products we want to see succeed. Buy products that can be repaired.

7. A fixed thing is a beautiful thing. Every fix, whether skillful or improvised, holds a story.

8. If you have an idea, start small and make it good. If it’s right, it'll grow from there.

9. Nurture your curiosity. Keep trying things you've never tried before. It's good for your brain and your soul.
Don't be afraid to fail — it makes success all the sweeter.

10. People are infinitely diverse. Products should be too. Everything can be improved or customised.

11. Disposability is a choice, not a physical characteristic. Plastics aren't evil, but we're using them wrong.

12. Share your ideas, your enthusiasm and your skills. If you've found the joy of fixing, pass it on. It's a gift for life.

S.O.S. Mobile Garden during Art in Odd Places along 14th Street, Manhattan, New York

How to make your own Mobile Garden.

1 - log on to craigslist.org and search the free items posting or dumpster dive.

2 - look out for items that can be easily roll around like office chair, luggage, stroller, skateboard etc.

3 - contact doner and pick up items.

4 - fix any broken parts and convert the item to a planter.

5 - be creative and design your mobile garden.

6 - remember to put some hole at the bottom for drainage.

7 - place edible plants into Mobile Garden.

8 - now you have a living sculpture.

9 - start a Mobile Garden parade with your friends and neighbors

Come join the parade, see how the students of Eugene Lang College reinterpret Mobile Garden and marking location that is suitable for an edible garden along 14th Street.

Mobile Garden + Signs of Growth

A project of Simonnetta Moro, Eve S. Mosher and Tattfoo Tan, interpreted by student of Eugene Lang College.
Curated by Erin Donnelly and Radhika Subramaniam
Part of Art in Odd Places

Friday, October 16, 17 and 18

Parade along 14th Street from Union Square towards the Hudson River.

In preparation for this joint project, Eugene Lang students supervised by the artists will conduct research along a designated area of 14th street, to identify places where food could be grown. At the same time, they will design a "tag" to leave in the designated areas, and a map that will be handed out to participants in a walking tour illustrating the sites for potential food crops.

Another team of students will be given the brief to build a few mobile sculptures, consisting of a suitable mobile planter that can be moved, pushed and paraded around. It can be a baby stroller, skateboard, flatbed pickup truck, suitcase, laundry basket, file cabinet with caster, bicycle basket and more. The carts will be filled with dirt and edible plants, and paraded along 14th street on the days of the event. The carts will display the “Signs of Growth” tags, which will be left in the designated areas by the students. We envision this as a great way to start a conversation with the public, and telling them about the project and the issues we are highlighting.

Students will start building the “Mobile Garden” and display it at the campus courtyard starting in October as the project unfolds. A parade will be held October 16, 17 and 18, 2009 along 14th street and then it will be on display at the Skybridge Art & Sound Space for the duration of the month.

Growing Space Blog to share information and document the progress of the project.

The Skybridge Art & Sound Space
Between 66 W 12th and 65 W 11th Streets, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10011

The Skybridge Art and Sound Space at Eugene Lang College is located on the third floor between the Lang and the New School building. This unsual space - a walkway with floor to ceiling windows on one side and audio/visual equipment - provides an opportunity for multi-media exhibitions and curriculum-based projects in the Arts. Students and faculty work, visiting artists’ shows and broader curatorial projects are part of our program to make the space a vibrant and exciting laboratory for visual enjoyment and critical thinking.

The Skybridge Art and Sound Space is open Monday-Friday 8am-7pm throughout the year, and on weekends by appointment. The space hosts two to three shows a semester, and a summer show. For additional information, please contact Simonetta Moro at 212-22905100x2258 or at moros@newschool.edu

Visit our blog: http://skybridgescope.blogspot.com/

Art In Odd Places presents 2009 Festival
SIGN
October 1-26, 2009 on 14th Street, NYC

A festival exploring the odd, ordinary, and ingenious in the spectacle of daily life. NEW YORK, NY (July 8, 2009) Art in Odd Places, NYC’s annual public art and performance festival, announces its 2009 season: SIGN with more than 60 artists and performers. Once again, from October 1 through 26, Art in Odd Places (AiOP) brings art into the public life of 14th Street, infusing its everyday rhythms and spaces with ideas, imagination, humor, and politics, and encouraging its residents, workers, andvisitors to experience it anew.

This year’s festival gathers under the many meanings of the word ‘SIGN’: Direction, ban, authority, solidarity, advertisement, ownership, gesture, enticement, omen, signature, and trace. “We’re excited to bring creative energy into our streets and invite artists to explore the freedoms of the public realm with their fellow New Yorkers,” say co-curators, Erin Donnelly and Radhika Subramaniam, “14th Street has the geographical breadth and metaphoric depth to make it an apt location for art that manifests the signs of our times and while also being a signpost toward future possibilities.”

About Art in Odd Places
Art in Odd Places (AiOP) aims to present art that stretches the boundaries of communication in the public realm by presenting artworks in all disciplines outside the confines of traditional public space regulations. AiOP reminds us that public spaces function as the epicenter for diverse social interactions and the unfettered exchange of ideas. AiOP is directed by artist Ed Woodham and is a project of GOH Productions. www.gohproductions.com.

Students of Eugene Lang College pushing along Mobile Garden and tagging Sign of Grow along 14th Street, Manhattan, New York, October 16, 2009

The students also research and design a map to be given out to the public to engage them to think about the greening of our city.

S.O.S. Mobile Garden in Staten Island, New York

SummerFest is a series of FREE music, comedy, animation, and performance art interventions by Staten Island artists, presented by the Council on the Arts & Humanities for Staten Island (COAHSI). SummerFest Excellence in the Arts Awards are made possible through the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.

Mobile Garden is supported by New York City Department of Transportation's Urban Art Program within the Arteventions program.

Nancy and John Biggs with their Mobile Garden.