New York, NY, USA
What is Urban Wilderness and how do you envision it? : The idea of urban wilderness is something I’ve been thinking about for quite a while now. While the literal manifestations are the ones that immediately spring to mind (plants, wildlife, urban farms and gardens, etc.), I think that the essence of urban wilderness is about bringing the intangible qualities of experience that one finds in nature into the urban environment.
For me, this means a sense of spaciousness, calm, silence, slowness, and a deep sense of connectedness to the environment around me. It means the ability to tune in to my senses rather than having to tune out in order to function. It means a place where thoughts and movement slow and settle. It means that my mind and body open up, becoming receptive rather than protective.
What type of interventions would love to see to help shape Urban Wilderness? We’re interested in both the practical and the fantastically impractical.: In no particular order, I would love to see:
1. “quiet zones” within the city
2. plant life growing in unexpected places, out of the built environment
3. mass interventions in which, through the suggestion of the crowd, everyone is forced/encouraged to move much more slowly than they usually do
How would you practically teach and perform such an intervention? (and Would you be interested in leading it?): I think #1 and #3 would best be led as workshops where the participants collaborate to brainstorm/create the form of the intervention and then go out and implement it as a group. I would potentially be interested in leading this.
This post was submitted by Alexis.
One Comment
It is interesting to observe the different culturo-social definitions which people are placing on the term ‘wilderness’. An interesting read on the divergent attitudes to ‘landscape’ is IMAGINED COUNTRY; SOCIETY CULTURE AND ENVIRONMENT by John Rennie Short. In it he addresses the concepts of Wilderness versus City versus Landscape, and then conducts Historo-cultural case studies in ‘English Novels’, The ‘American “Western”, and Australian Landscape Painting.
The qualitative and political connotations we attached to our definitions of an Urban Wilderness will greatly effect the outcome and methods we pursue to achieve it.