Writings

Patrick is founder of City as Nature (Osaka & Seoul) and arts editor for the Nature of Cities (New York). He has been a contributing writer for YES! Magazine, Kyoto Journal, Landscape Architecture Frontiers JournalArts EverywhereResilience, Routledge Press, and the San Jose Mercury News among others, and has co-authored multiple books. Below you’ll find a collection of essays, prose, and other writings published in various journals, magazines, newspapers, books, and blogs.

The Possible City

A series of illustrated stories, exploring the solutions for the equitable, ecological cities of the future that exist in the world today.

Book Chapters

1 + 1 = 3 : Stories of Imagination and the Art of Nature-Based Solutions [forthcoming]

Nature-based Solutions for Cities
Scheduled for 2023 Release / Edward Elgar Publishing, UK
Editors: Timon McPhearson, Nadja Kabisch and Niki Frantzeskaki

Chapter Authors: Patrick M. Lydon, David Maddox, Robin Lasser, Carla Vitantonio, Baixo Ribeiro

We often think of art as a way to help illuminate nature-based solutions, and it is. Yet, art is also its own way of knowing. This chapter explores how art can be central to enacting nature-based solutions (NBS) by helping to rediscover our human relationships with nature. Through a three-step process of 1) Awareness, 2) Radical Imagination, and 3) Becoming Storytellers, the chapter presents examples of participative practices that meld ecological and social perspectives in the United States, Brazil, Italy, Cuba, Korea, and Japan. Through such practices we may find new paths towards practical actions for NBS in cities by re-discovering our own relationships with nature and each other.

Urban Biodiversity? Artists Have the Keys

BiodiverCities by 2030: Transforming Cities with Biodiversity
2022 / publisher: Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt, Bogotá
ISBN printed: 978-958-5183-48-3
ISBN digital: 978-958-5183-49-0
Editors: Mejía, M. A., Amaya-Espinel, J. D

Chapter Authors: Carmen Bouyer, Patrick M. Lydon

If we look at the ‘contemporary’ art world—filled with acrylics, solvents, chemical colors and adhesives— it might be difficult to imagine how artists could be champions for nature and biodiversity. The work in contemporary art museums and galleries however, represents only a minor slice of what constitutes art around the world. To find more ecological art then, we must cast a slightly wider net. Our premise is that, at its most elemental form, art must be ecological practice. It can only be so, as art is a means of conveying the truth of our individual relationship with nature and the universe. In nearly every world culture, at nearly every time in history, this has been a constant feature of what we call ‘art’ in the broad sense. These acts of art are inherently acts of connection to the earth.

This book is released freely, under a Creative Commons license.

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Urban ecology: Art and the cultivation of ecological mindsets

Routledge Handbook of Urban Ecology (2nd Edition)
2020 / publisher: Routledge, New York
ISBN: 978-1138581357
Editors: Ian Douglas, P M L Anderson, David Goode, Michael C. Houck, David Maddox, Harini Nagendra, Puay Yok Tan

Chapter Author

A practical academic handbook with an emphasis on the biophilic design of cities, homes and workplaces, demonstrating the myriad ways in which nature is a critical value of urban development, rather than a constraint. The chapter I’ve authored explores how we can cultivate ecological mindsets in urban contexts, using concepts from ecopsychology and the mindset of artists as building blocks.

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Books

Co-Authored with partner Suhee Kang, the following books are available at booksellers throughout South Korea:

불안과 경쟁 없는 이곳에서 (Here, Without Anxiety or Competition)

2017 (2nd printing 2020) / 320 pages / full color / publisher: Yeolmaehana Books, Seoul
ISBN: 9791196171117

Co-Author (with Suhee Kang)

An account of Patrick and Suhee’s six years of travel through Japan, Korea, UK, and the USA to visit regenerative ‘natural’ farmers and urban dwellers working to build social and ecological wellness in their communities. The book is printed in full color and features the duo’s beautiful photographic imagery along with the interviews and personal reflections on their journey. [published in Korean language]

Selected Reviews:
Korea Herald
Daejeon Ilbo
The Farmer’s News
more…

자연농(Final Straw)

2015 / 92 pages / full color / publisher: Geumulko, Seoul
ISBN: 978-8990090775

Co-Author (with Suhee Kang)

A photo essay book about natural farmers. Images can be removed from the book individually, to be used as postcards. [published in Korean language]

Essays

Previous Works

Secure Wireless Integrated Solutions Guide

2008 / 512 pages / publisher: Syngress Elsevier, New York
ISBN: 978-1597491938

Co-Author & Art Director

During the decade that he worked in Silicon Valley in his early life, Lydon was art director and co-author of the SonicWALL Secure Wireless Integrated Solutions Guide, authoring several chapters while inserting ‘easter eggs’ that reflected the real world experience in the tech industry. Can you find them?