alternative life

Planting political consciousness
text and photos by Stefanie Fock

There are various types and sizes. They have become a political strategy. They are the community gardens in Barcelona.

 

An urban garden is sown in pots on balconies and terraces, in the smallest particles of waste ground, in the schoolyard, on land ceded by the City, in fields shared by the neighborhood. All gardeners take advantage of unused space by giving citizens a sense: leading the city in horticulture, the contact with the earth and nutrition awareness, transforming everyday life to be consumed at the manufacturer, replacing the gray of the concrete jungle with the green plants.
And in Barcelona shows that in addition to the growing urban greenery can make many other colors. "A garden should be truly urban Community, not private interests. In this way it would create more green space and public, if we could grow where it wants and not only in the country. " The words of Mary, who organized the workshops in Hortet Forat, in the central district of La Ribera, express the same feeling that an artist has summarized in a simple graffiti across town, 'Aki me' planto ('Here I am crying '). This slogan was named the vegetable garden behind the wall painting in the district of Sant Andreu. While across the street from the supermarket doors open and close continuously, the group of young Aki planto me leave them open. Passers-by, who decided to continue with the urban tradition of eating plant products out of season, and looking through the small oasis in which are regularly watered the tomato plants will bear fruit soon.

“Akí me planto” a Sant Andreu

In a different way

Today we can define Barcelona not only as the European Capital of occupation, thanks to a number of houses and Social Centers superior to the other cities of our continent is also the city with more community gardens in Spain and probably also the countries beyond the borders of the peninsula. The growing urban and community has become an important strategy of socio-political movements of the Catalan capital.

Giornate di lavoro a Can Masdeu

Whereas the identity of a city can not be designed from the outside (and above) and that is not only characterized by its architecture, dealing with free space to denounce the speculative dynamics, while creating community and self-managed sites. This specific interaction between people and space continues the tradition of this city and show us the possibilities of action, and redistributing the spaces that have 'uncertain' fate in an urban environment increasingly controlled. This mountain community projects in urban gardens or agricultural areas to retrieve knowledge about the origin of food, against genetically modified food "should be organized on the theme of urban farming in some way, but the City does so in a way that users of its gardens at the end come back to be consumerists," adds Javi Can Masdeu project.

Laboratorio su come fare un Orto sul balcone

“With the bank to exchange the seeds of Can Masdeu are literally sprouted in the land of the city. In more than a dozen gardens scattered around Barcelona all kinds of people, gender and age cleaning, designing, building, plant, gather, eat, celebrate and interchangeable. It is to learn and share knowledge and collected as much space as friends and neighbors, experiencing not only the contact between the rural and urban issues, but also the self-management and the breakdown of hierarchies in favor of an common decision. Returning to a vision of power linked to the territory, creating a zone between ecology and sociality. Although under the asphalt is neither easy to cultivate land or land of the Flower, attaches great importance to this way of planting to achieve the pleasure of eating something of better quality than what you can buy. So gardeners, putting into practice their values of sustainability and autonomy, join one of the basic necessities to the creation of places that offer another way of life. With workshops, guided tours for groups and spaces for children and cultural events such as concerts and popular dinners, more and more people cultivate true community centers open, returning to use libertarian ideas of space, of vegetables, and who cares for them.

Annaffiando a Gràcia

The Okupa movement

Bringing the country to the city means to adapt the pace to that of urban nature, but at the same time take into account the characteristics of an urban garden, influenced by changes in the city. There are many gardens in danger of destruction because of land development plans, such as the Hort de Cologne de la Colonia Castells  of Les Corts district, the idea from which this garden, located within the walls of one of the first demolished houses, it is to revive the neighborhood and support the resistance of its inhabitants. The city is garden not - contrary to what you may think - an invention of contemporary urban but a historical phenomenon, since the city was created around or near fertile soil, and therefore also the precarious situation is not new to ortolan citizens. The lack of recognition of the practice of urban farming in Barcelona, due to a modern conception of the city, has made sure that the gardens and the predominantly older people caring for them and planting alongside the train tracks or on the banks of River Besos and Llobregat, always suffer from a position of informality.

The movement Okupa are also faced with the problem of legality of the vegetable gardens, as demonstrated by the eviction of several community gardens in recent years. The gardeners of the Community Hort de Gràcia lost their lawsuit filed by the owners of the land, which had been occupied by unused for five years after the eviction and demolition of CSOA El Monstruo de Banyoles. Volker, the Hort of Xino in the Raval district, said that one of the objectives of the gardens would be "to keep the tradition of this land where previously there was a social center" in this case, Ruina Amalia.
The lack of recognition by the authorities has not stopped the need and desire of citizens to plant into the surrounding environment. The creation of the network of community gardens in Barcelona in November 2009 shows that the evictions have discouraged even the occupations of land for establishing new orchards. Instead, the gardeners come together to continue this new trend in the movement of horticultural libertarian ideology. Despite the production of community gardens is just starting out, already makes great fruit towards a freer, more creative and sustainable society.