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<div>Hi, Mary</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Thanks for bringing up the issue of water.</div>
<div>I am glad to read about The Swale project, it's 'cultivated'
multi collaborators/collaboration and</div>
<div>the think through of water/filter system for the floating
forest.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Here in Paris- a floating garden project, initiated by the city.
I am afraid it's more about landscaping the city?</div>
<div
>http://www.urbangardensweb.com/2013/08/12/floating-gardens-giant-cha<span
></span>lkboards-and-climbing-walls-on-banks-of-seine-in-paris/</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I once proposed for them to filter the water of the Seine for the
plants and to create a water soundscape installation (yet another
unrealized project). The possibilities of the saline, seawater
farming</div>
<div>interest me a lot. I have been thinking about water as a
medium for transit and transmission(radio waves). For the border
crossing floating boat people, if the sea water can be sourced?</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Hernani who started with finding a solution for automated
watering system in home gardening has moved on to monitor olive
trees for the farmers. The resistance power of the open source
tools.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>best</div>
<div>sl</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>At 9:14 PM -0400 3/16/16, Mary Mattingly wrote:</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>----------empyre- soft-skinned
space----------------------</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Thanks Amanda,<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font color="#1A1A1A">Yes, I believe I
started focusing on water because I grew up in a farming town where
the drinking water was polluted with DDT, a Dow chemical made for
warfare, and then mass produced as a pesticide. When water
privatization became one of the final frontiers of the commodities
market, it was a subject that (ahem) seeped into my work. But I've
always been engaged with questions of economy, specifically how we can
live more interdependently and less solely on commodities markets.
When I moved to New York and most everything in my life became
monetized, making living systems or ecosystems was a form of survival
masked as art-as-life. Then it became art for the sake of learning
from the experiment, and at some point along the way I hope it has
become more poetic. With Swale, I'm honing in on food. It could be
about my health in part (probably most everything we do stems from the
very personal). Living with Celiac I'm more conscious than ever
about the importance of healthy food and systems - and permaculture
merges economy and health: after an initial investment of time (and in
urban centers, money) food forests eventually care for themselves, and
you, in an undeniable way. </font><br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> <br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Swale will be a floating food forest
where people can visit and pick fresh free food. It's a resource and
a more utopian proposal for New York: what if food was a public
service? The hope is that it will become a permanent
fixture.<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> <br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Shu, thank you for bringing us back to
this all too real future scenario. Since the present is already far
from great, the future of food is therefore all levels of disturbing.
I wonder what will happen with the Svalbard Seed Bank in 2030. Will
Monsanto and the Gates Foundation patent the entire collection of
genetic material they have collected? Will they continue to alter the
material and conduct new tests on humans around the world, and by
proxy, everything else? Will we continue to let them?<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> <br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>So as to eventually fall asleep at night,
I tend to look for something to grasp onto throughout the bleak, murky
psycho-corporate oligopolies, and more recently it's been companies
like Greenwave (<a
href="http://greenwave.org">http://greenwave.org</a>) that offer some
sort of temporary respite - the business focused on multi-species 3D
ocean farms "aiming to restore ocean ecosystems and create jobs in
coastal communities by transforming fishers into restorative ocean
farmers." Co-owned urban farms that profit share is also a powerful
movement that gives me<i> hope</i> - which, growing up as a US
citizen, I have been trained to want so badly.<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> <br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>I'm also keen on saline farming - how
much salinity can fruits and vegetables tolerate and for how long? Can
we do more growing in saltwater marshes if we are surrounded by ocean
yet have little fresh water? Could this provide some respite for
California?</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><a
href=
"http://www.futurefarmonline.com.au/farm-research/farming-saline-land"
>http://www.futurefarmonline.com.au/farm-research/farming-saline-land</a
></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> <br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> <br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>I'll leave on this succinct note,
"Industrial fertilization is the science of ignorance." - Vandana
Shiva<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> <br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 11:41 AM, Amanda
McDonald Crowley <<a
href="mailto:amandamcdc@gmail.com">amandamcdc@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote>----------empyre- soft-skinned
space----------------------<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Mary,</blockquote>
<blockquote><br></blockquote>
<blockquote>By way of further introduction, I thought I might bring to
the attention of this discussion list your current project, Swale,
that you'll be working on over the summer 2016 in New York City. I
wonder if you might introduce the project a little. <a
href="http://www.swaleny.org/">http://www.swaleny.org/</a></blockquote
>
<blockquote><br></blockquote>
<blockquote>And perhaps it would also be useful to give some
background to a particular thread in many of your works: I am thinking
of the works that I see as related, that began with The Waterpod
Project, which led to a series of other works: Flock House Project New
York,Triple Island, Flock House Project Omaha, and Wetland.
In each of these projects, growing food as part of the infrastructure
of the project was a key element to the "live / work" nature
of each of these art projects.</blockquote>
<blockquote><br></blockquote>
<blockquote>With Swale, your attention is turned more specifically to
growing food on a public floating "park". So in essence food
seems to be the core concern of this work, where previously it was
part of an integrated system, something I've heard you describe as a
living system. Can you describe a little why this concept of a living
system has become so central to much of your art
practice?</blockquote>
<blockquote><br></blockquote>
<blockquote>Amanda</blockquote>
<blockquote><br></blockquote>
<blockquote><br></blockquote>
<blockquote><br>
_______________________________________________<br>
empyre forum<br>
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href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au"
>empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a><br>
<a
href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu"
>http://empyre.library.cornell.edu</a><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>--<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font color="#888888">Studio: 20 Jay St.
#204 Brooklyn, NY 11201 </font> <a
href="http://www.marymattingly.com"><font
color="#888888">www.marymattingly.com</font></a><br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br>
_______________________________________________<br>
empyre forum<br>
empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au<br>
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu</blockquote>
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