The Desertification Cookbook

[niyad]

(I learned about this project when I went to the Fine Arts Center yesterday, and found the installation fascinating.

The Desertification Cookbook

desert ArtLAB is dedicated to a social art practice, explores connections between ecology, culture and community.
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April Bojorquez works within the intersection of art and anthropology.
Artist Bio

Matt Garcia’s work investigates the subjectivity of American truth, ecology, and visual culture.
Artist Bio

The Desertification Cookbook visually re-brands the concept of deserts not as a post-apocalyptic growth of wasteland, but as a culinary and ecological opportunity. As desertification spreads, desert ArtLAB says: Don’t panic… Eat. The diverse spectrum of flora and fauna found in healthy desert regions around the world has been a source of food, medicine, intoxicants and mythology dating back to a pre-agricultural era. This knowledge is becoming increasingly vital as 40 percent of global population live in expanding dryland regions. The cookbook will examine strategies for living based on the limits of our environment. The project will also pilot an ecological installation in an urban desert community to demonstrate the resilience of arid land ecologies.


https://vimeo.com/698517367

Development in desert cities has created new homes and opportunities in the Southwest, but has also stripped away parts of the natural environment and its rich history. Can urban pockets of degraded land be revitalized? Can the history and the ecological value of these places be reclaimed sustainably? The answers may lie in a 30-year land art project in Pueblo, Colorado. Matt Garcia and April Bojorquez, artists, educators, and founders of DesertArtLAB, transform “wasteland” into a productive and edible landscape in their public art initiative: “The Desertification Cookbook.” They bring together art and place, ecology and community, in an ambitious multi-phase project set to span decades. Join us for a conversation with Garcia and Bojorquez as they discuss the development of their land art project, from its roots in Phoenix to its realization in Pueblo.


DesertArtLAB is an interdisciplinary artist collaborative co-directed by April Bojorquez (she/her) and Matthew Garcia (he/him) whose work promotes Indigenous perspectives on ecological practice and climate change.



Grounded in dryland indigenous knowledge systems, DesertArtLAB’s projects activate public space through participatory artworks and support the restoration of desert environments through zero irrigation regrowth projects. In promoting an ecologically-centered food practice and aesthetic, their community-based works recast the post-apocalyptic concept of the desert as a culinary opportunity for the future.



To demonstrate the resilience of dryland environments, in 2016 they launched an ecological installation in the urban high desert community of Pueblo, Colorado. By deploying Indigenous agricultural practices their installation transformed a blighted plot of urban land into a revitalized landscape of edible and medicinal flora. While functioning as extended time-based artworks, their practice honors the complex history and knowledge built into these landscapes.



DesertArtLAB have exhibited their work at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France; The Museum of Contemporary Native Art, Santa Fe, NM; the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara; and at the Balance-Unbalance Festival, Noose, Australia. They have been guest presenters at the International Symposium on Electronic Art and at HASTAC, (Lima, Peru). April and Matt were awarded the Creative Capital grant in 2016; they live and work in Pueblo, Colorado.

https://www.vivavirtualartists.org/desert-artlab

[yonder]

1. KnArd.

[niyad]

2. Thank you.

[Carlitos Brigante]

3. K&R! nt

[niyad]

4. Thank you.

[jalan48]

5. An interesting site. Thanks for sharing.

[niyad]

6. You are most welcome.

[littlemissmartypants]

7. Bookmarked. Thank you ❤️

[niyad]

10. You are most welcome.

[Kali]

8. desertified landscapes are not the same thing as drylands

normal deserts do have healthy diversity (some more than others) but land that has recently desertified is poor in all forms. the degree of adaptation has a lot to do with time. rapidly desertifying environments are degrading and eroding quickly the only adaptation going on is usually opportunistic, low succession "weed" type organisms and in low amounts of biomass.

[niyad]

14. Perhaps you would be willing to talk to them about their project. They

are not that far from me.

[Kali]

15. project sounds interesting

and I was just up near ASU last week, might have checked out exhibit had I known. might make it back before it closes but not sure at this point.

my little issue/point was with this statement -

As desertification spreads, desert ArtLAB says: Don’t panic… Eat. The diverse spectrum of flora and fauna found in healthy desert regions around the world has been a source of food, medicine, intoxicants and mythology dating back to a pre-agricultural era.

[onethatcares]

9. thank you, I've read about this before

not sure of the citation but a section of either the Gobi or the Saharan Deserts were brought back to productivity by planting indigenous plant species (mostly desert weeds) that took hold and the more they grew the better water retention became which led to dates/figs and other edibles regaining their place in the biosphere. Imagine reclaiming desert and turning it into oases.

I believe it took less than 5 years to accomplish this.

[niyad]

12. Your account just had me thinking about an old story along the johnny

appleseed line. A guy is traveling across a very arid area, barren mountains and valley. He talks to the villagers, who seem pretty resigned, except for one guy. That guy is busy planting saplings. A number of years later, the guy returns to the same area. Only, he is certain he has made a mistake. The valley is lush and vibrant, the mountainside no longer barren. The villagers seem full of life. He encounters the same person who had been planting the saplings. When he asks the guy whaat happened, the guy responds with something like, "The trees grew. life returned."

[Kali]

16. ...

[onethatcares]

17. I am proud to call these people friends of the Earth

GreenForestsWork

planted over 5 million trees to date. Check out their work.

[niyad]

18. Thank you. I just looked at their website. Definitely Friends of the Earth.

[betsuni]

11. K&R

[niyad]

13. Thank you.