A City Designed by Trees
Commissioned for the 2022 Daejeon Biennale “City Project,” we weave together science, art, and cultural traditions to imagine a city designed by trees.
Tag: nature
The Possible City Illustrations
Every fortnight I publish The Possible City, an illustrated story series exploring the kinds of equitable, resilient, regenerative cities that you and I might actually want to live in. These stories are not about the cities we currently inhabit, but rather, about uncovering the cities … Continue readingThe Possible City Illustrations
City as Weeds
We normally think of weeds as enemies. In this exhibition, Kang and Lydon’s “City as Nature” studio suggests that weeds are healers of the land, of people, and of cities. In three multi-sensory sections, the herbalist and artist couple celebrate how a relationship with four … Continue readingCity as Weeds
City as Nature Festival
In 2019, I directed an international arts festival featuring interactive, place-based art, workshops, concerts, walks, talks, and storytelling events. Taking place at multiple locations in Osaka’s “Kitakagaya Creative Village,” the City as Nature Festival aimed at cultivating our awareness of urban environmental landscapes. At the … Continue readingCity as Nature Festival
Artworks
Current works and select past works and projects from 2007 — current, organized by category: INSTALLATION & CONCEPT | FILM & VIDEO | STILL IMAGE | PROJECTS
Nick Reeves Award for Art and Environment
We’ve just been notified that our project in Osaka, “The Branch” has received a ‘Special Commendation’ from the 2018 Nick Reeves Award from Art and Environment! This award is given annually in recognition of an outstanding contribution in the field of environmental arts… … Continue readingNick Reeves Award for Art and Environment
Nature of Cities: A City Designed by Trees
In this writing for The Nature of Cities, Patrick reminds us that “seeing trees as sacred is not an anomaly; it’s the fact that we’ve somehow lost this fellowship, that is an anomaly.” He offers a rather bold challenge to ecological cities, asking: If a tree is a keystone of our environmental wellness, and a reason for our continued existence here, then why not at least learn to listen to its voice? If we did listen, how might the things we hear transform the landscape of a city over years, decades, and centuries? … Continue readingNature of Cities: A City Designed by Trees
A Current that Trickles Through the Walls
There are synergies between human progress and environmental wellness here in Japan, that have been accomplished nowhere else in human history. … Continue readingA Current that Trickles Through the Walls
Nature of Cities: Artists in Conversation with Water
Co-chair of a panel discussion at The Nature of Cities along with Carmen Bouyer. We invite eleven artists to present their conversation with water in cities. Coming from seven different countries—Czech Republic, France, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, and the United States—these artists inspire our own experiences with water in cities. … Continue readingNature of Cities: Artists in Conversation with Water
A Winter Friend, the Sazanka (山茶花)
Flower watching is an event like no other here in Japan. Every spring especially, the country goes crazy for the light pink cherry blossoms that grace so many of its streets, parks, and hillsides; so much so that office workers sometimes get off early once … Continue readingA Winter Friend, the Sazanka (山茶花)
Nature of Cities: Artists in Conversation with Air
Co-chair of a panel discussion at The Nature of Cities along with Carmen Bouyer. We invite seven artists from around the Earth to present their conversations with air in cities. Through their different creative practices, they invite us to encounter the air as the breath that flows through all of us, and unites us in a “common ground.” We hope you enjoy reading and participating in the conversations… … Continue readingNature of Cities: Artists in Conversation with Air
YES! Magazine | What the Garden-Hacking Grandmas and Grandpas of Korea Know
Patrick writes for YES! Magazine, how gardening here is not a hobby. It comes from the realization within people that there is inherent value in tending a garden and taking time to be a part of nature. … Continue readingYES! Magazine | What the Garden-Hacking Grandmas and Grandpas of Korea Know
Nature of Cities: Drought and Flood in a Silicon Valley Museum
The floods that ravaged Silicon Valley this winter may have dried up, but there is still plenty of water flowing through the San Jose Museum of Art. This is a review of a trio of water-related exhibitions on view, “Liquid City,” The Darkened Mirror,” and “Fragile Waters.” … Continue readingNature of Cities: Drought and Flood in a Silicon Valley Museum
End of Winter Update (2017)
As a testament to an unconventional year, we spent Christmas on an overnight train from Chaingmai to Bangkok this year. Although we took the trip with our good friends Tomo and Pattarapol, and there were a few bright red Santa hats walking around the train, … Continue readingEnd of Winter Update (2017)
REALtimeFOOD in Megijima, Japan!
Join us this fall as we learn from and grow with each other during this 10-week series of events where participants learn to cultivate their creativity and ecological awareness, exploring art, nature, culture, and good food on the island of Megijima! … Continue readingREALtimeFOOD in Megijima, Japan!
Nature of Cities | Building an Ecology of One
Around the world, individuals are building social, economic, and ecological well being into their communities, they are becoming partners again with the earth in all that they do. Each of us, too, has the power to make a socially and ecologically just economic system a reality for ourselves and those around us. … Continue readingNature of Cities | Building an Ecology of One
Final Straw: Food, Earth, Happiness
A documentary film and long-term international dialogue about food, earth, and happiness, based on a Japanese ‘Natural Farming’ philosophy of living with the environment.
Nature of Cities | A Restaurant and Garden Serving up Connections to Urban Nature
We opened a slightly audacious restaurant and garden in a working-class suburb of Osaka, Japan with the intent of connecting people more deeply with food and nature in their neighborhood. Can an urban garden help us remember what it means to be human? … Continue readingNature of Cities | A Restaurant and Garden Serving up Connections to Urban Nature
Nature of Cities | Trees of Life and Fruitful Relationships
A review written for The Nature of Cities on Arboreal Architecture: A Visual History of Trees, an exhibition on view at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University. The show’s curator, George Philip LeBourdais, has shoehorned a global collection of artworks from the Cantor Center’s collection into an exhibition that offers a deep and powerful display of cultural relationships to trees over a great timespan… … Continue readingNature of Cities | Trees of Life and Fruitful Relationships
Nature of Cities | Artists, Vagabonds, and an Accidental Nature Reserve in San Francisco Bay
A review written for The Nature of Cities of Refuge in Refuse: Homesteading Art and Culture, an exhibition curated by Robin Lasser, Danielle Siembieda, and Barbara Boissevain at SOMArts, San Francisco, USA. … Continue readingNature of Cities | Artists, Vagabonds, and an Accidental Nature Reserve in San Francisco Bay
Nature of Cities | Garden City Culture: How a Cultural Connection with Nature Can Build a Truly Sustainable Future
If urban sustainability issues are to become deeply entrenched in culture, it follows that successful urban nature design—indeed, successful sustainable cities in general—can only be achieved in concert with a deep and sustained cultural awareness of the importance of nature. … Continue readingNature of Cities | Garden City Culture: How a Cultural Connection with Nature Can Build a Truly Sustainable Future
Resilience | Solving Crime and Inequality, with a Seed
Is it possible for a humble seed and a patch of soil to be the catalysts for stronger, healthier, more equal urban communities? … Continue readingResilience | Solving Crime and Inequality, with a Seed
Nature of Cities | Art and Urban Green Spaces
I took part in this global panel discussion on how can art (in all its forms), exhibits, installations and provocations be a better catalyst to raise awareness, support and momentum for urban nature and green spaces. … Continue readingNature of Cities | Art and Urban Green Spaces
I am Born (California Oak)
A boy and his dog
A shepheard and his sheep
Lone on a crispy dry hill, a cow cools off
even the famous ‘Real California Cheese’
can thank me for something … Continue readingI am Born (California Oak)
The Redwood Before Buddha
The big reddish-colored tree in the right side of this frame is a California Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens). The oldest of these Redwood trees are much older than you and I. In fact, they are older than most of our recorded human history. The oldest … Continue readingThe Redwood Before Buddha
Change Starts with You
Suhee and I are headed to the San Francisco Bay Area today. In the past two months, we’ve had a great, focused time to work with the film while in residency at Jageun Jip, and in the last ten days, we’ve organized multiple small ‘rough cut’ … Continue readingChange Starts with You
Nature of Cities | What Can the Loss of Culture Teach Us About Urban Nature?
We have an endless stream of good knowledge, theory, and practice for building sustainable, nature-inclusive cities, what’s missing is a deeper consciousness of our relationship to the environment. … Continue readingNature of Cities | What Can the Loss of Culture Teach Us About Urban Nature?
In Dae-dong, ‘Poor’ Neighborhood, High Quality of Life
If you want to know how someone can live in a monetarily ‘poor’ urban neighborhood and have a good quality of life, there are undoubtedly some answers to be found here. … Continue readingIn Dae-dong, ‘Poor’ Neighborhood, High Quality of Life
Spring 2014 Updates
Suhee and I are sitting in the Open Contents Lab, a co-working space in ‘Gangnam’ just now, and somehow I recall seeing Snoop Dogg dancing with a bottle of Soju last night… not sure if that was a dream or the jet lag. We’ve just … Continue readingSpring 2014 Updates
[HUMAN:NATURE]
Using research and interactive media to visualize connections between people and environment and the vital support systems of community and agriculture.
What is Food
An installation which looks at food production in a tactile way, this living sculpture exists for the cabbage to slowly feed off of the energy of the decomposing burger.
Centre for Endless Growth
A temporary ‘research centre,’ established within Edinburgh’s TENT Gallery as an active workspace for catalyzing new ways of thinking about growth. … Continue readingCentre for Endless Growth
Image and Word: Blossom
What you see
feel
hear
taste
smell … Continue readingImage and Word: Blossom
Harvest
A video-based work exploring the concept of ‘harvest’ within rural-agrarian and urban-consumer society, Harvest employs two-channel video, projected side-by-side into urban environments.
A “Nature Day” as Part of the Workweek?
First, a short update on the film… Suhee and I are working mostly on the editing process, having spent the past two months going through what has grown to 80,000 words of interview transcriptions, working to create a framework and path for the film. Our animator, … Continue readingA “Nature Day” as Part of the Workweek?
Negotiating with Mother Earth
This whole Natural Capital initiative (whereby the industry puts price tags on the natural environment) is on the losing side of an argument which — by the very physical principals that guide this earth — will always be decided by nature, not humans. If there is … Continue readingNegotiating with Mother Earth
Dear Industry: It’s Not You, It’s Me
For the sake of that little bit of sanity, let’s assume it’s not too late to turn back the tables on environmental disaster. That it’s not too late for us to re-capture truth in the way we live life and the way we interact with others … Continue readingDear Industry: It’s Not You, It’s Me
Dominant Color
A series of three paintings of the wind-swept landscapes of Orkney, in the far north of Scotland. Each painting consists of a solid, hand-mixed color, representing the mathematically-calculated dominant color value of three landscapes in Orkney: 1) an oil terminal 2) a wind farm3) a … Continue readingDominant Color
Blood, Sweat, Dirt and All
The reality of being in that picturesque setting, that painting sitting above the couch, is far more difficult than just looking at the painting and enjoying its beauty. You have to work for it, too. … Continue readingBlood, Sweat, Dirt and All
An Expression of Understanding Nature
We’re kicking it up a notch here in Edinburgh. Suhee Kang arrived from South Korea a few days ago, and we’re now preparing both a gallery show and panel discussion for the Final Straw documentary project, set to take place at the end of November … Continue readingAn Expression of Understanding Nature