Carbon Farm
2017-2019
An edible, human breath fed, rooftop community farm on a large academic building in the heart of Boston.
I search for projects that address a need, that connect thinkers across disciplines for collaborative problem solving, and then I create imaginative acts of transformation that are open source, diy, iterable, and inspirational.
In 2016 had the opportunity to create with ecologist and activist Nathan Phillips, a partner residency program between my institution MassArt and BU’s Department of Earth and the Environment. One of the outcomes of my residency was the seed to develop Carbon Farm in 2017 with Dr. Phillips and one of his PhD students Sarabeth Buckley.
Carbon Farm was a series of rooftop gardens created in collaboration with PhD student Sarabeth Buckley and Professor Nathan Phillips as part of an artist residency at Boston University’s Department of Earth and the Environment. The science experiment was to measure the CO2 fertilization effect using waste CO2 from human breath exhaled out through building HVAC vent system. This project points to a simple act—both what to do with the hot air produced by academia, and to take the endless sea of empty black rooftops and create small rooftop gardens drawing on the vented CO2. We can rethink our relationship to CO2: turn the evil into the good.
The art and design experiment was to create a space over the course of three seasons where the community of students, staff, faculty, and Boston residents could come together to eat, learn, commune, and dream about community resilience in a time of climate disruption.
View a brief video filmed and directed by Sue Murad in 2019
Listen to Bruce Gellerman interview Nathan Phillips and Sarabeth Buckley about Carbon Farm on WBUR in 2018
Read:
Enhancing crop growth in rooftop farms by repurposing CO2 from human respiration inside buildings Sarabeth Buckley, Rebecca Sparks, Elizabeth Cowdery, Finn Stirling, Jane Marsching and Nathan Phillips
Events:
Yoga for the Climate October 2018
Join us for yoga for the climate on a rooftop at BU where we are experimenting with spinach grown from waste CO2 from human breath moving through building HVAC to rooftop vents. What is yoga for the climate? is it poses that reach for the sky, poses that help us process fear, poses that are challenging and strengthening for times ahead, poses that create lightness, airiness, and make us feel like molecules floating through the atmosphere? Is it breath practices that focus on our interconnectedness with all things? Is it meditating on our bodiesminds, and hearts as links between soil and climate?
October 2018
Seed Stories: for urban farmers and aspiring rooftop farmers — Join us on a rooftop at BU where we are experimenting with growing food augmented with CO2 emitting from rooftop vents. Have a spinach salad and learn about this innovative approach to growing food. Bring some seeds to swap, share stories about your urban farming challenges and opportunities, meet urban farming folks, and enjoy the night sky.
October 2018
Eating Reading at CarbonFarm — We invite you to bring your fiction or nonfiction essays, short stories, poems, or papers to share. In the spirit of speculative fiction, activist science, and radical imagination, we will pair the important, generative work of science with equally meaningful work of imagination and future making. Have you been inspired by Margaret Atwood, an essay by Elizabeth Kolbert or Naomi Klein, the poetry of Wendell Berry? Have you written your own essays, fiction, or science papers? Lets pair fact and fiction, both experiments with different methodologies but shared goals. Read aloud your excerpt on a warm spring evening high above the city while enjoying spinach salad. Meet urban farmers, scientists, writers, designers, and others. “The boundary between science fiction and social reality is an optical illusion” — Donna Haraway