Here is the main page that describes the gardening project

Why

Some things require careful planning and execution. Some projects start out as a means to acquaint and educate one’s self with no regards to the outcome. But what if you are to work in a project whose explicit outcome is not necessarily known let alone guess-stimated?? What if the people you have chosen to work with are the very people that society has claimed to have no place for ?? What if in the the end, all you get to learn is that given time and a space, it is people that are important and not gardens?? And you find this out because you have worked together with people in a garden??

DIE GAERTENEREI/ CO-OP CAMPUS  was such a project. Born on a ground that was part a cemetery and as such left on its own, it required tremendous amount of manpower to get it going!! Even then, the earth which took in her’ earthlings’ was not gonna let us open her up for the mighty plants that were to feast on her..oh no ..we had to work the ground year after year after year just so that she would be amenable to some of the bounty to be gained from plants.

 

 

When

The project started in early 2015. Seeing that the bumbling entity that is the German bureaucracy had to recognize and release the appropriate funding first, it ended as abruptly as it started in 2018; on account of some owls that were nesting near a greenhouse that we built.

What now??

Well …time and place moves on and so have i … Starting March 2019, I have been working on a new Roof Garden in the middle of Berlin with some lovely people. this new space is found in an arts space called ‘ACUD MACHT NEU’ and it has been a delightful project to work on.

And it has been available to eveyone since 2019. However, due to renovation work on the building and the need to re-build everything; the garden will be closed for the 2024 season. It shall be open once work is finished and funding is secured.

Nachbarschafts Campus Damweg

Starting pandemic year 2021, I got involved in a fascinating project that focused on using an old job school for gardeners situated on damweg 216 to convert it to a neighbourhood campus for those who lived near by damweg 216, Neukoln, Berlin. The 28 buildings of the famous ‘weiße Siedlung’ where amenities for education, culture and civic participation were lacking and thus upon hearing that this school near by was closing, a plan was hatched to use this space. Since the place was closed in 2016, one had to start with cleaning a Greenhouse and the adjecent buildings that have been closed for 7 years. If this greenhouse was to serve its true purpose, it had to be cleaned and restored top to bottom and it was a fascinating excercise on how to practice the art of the possible . 3 years later, directing the work in this garden has been a monumental and absolute Blast as I have learned so much from this collaboration with Artists, Authors, Engineers, Gardeners and all sorts of tradesmen and women.

This was a place as dreamy as any a space could be ; classrooms for any discussions of whatsoever to conduct, a greenhouse which suited either a conversation and/or gardening all together and a landscaped space which fed the eyes tired from living in the concrete jungle what the possibilities of a an ‘urban-city’ could be.

More photos will follow