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EDC Project Proposal: Kill your lawn; get paid!
What can encourage diehard lawn owners to try something new? Can cultivating a meadow be sexy? How can the toxicity of the pesticide-maintained monocultural lawn be exposed for the devastating and harmful environmental catastrophe that it is? This project tackles the toxicity of the suburban lawn.
It is estimated that monocultural lawns take up 1.9-2% of all land surface in the US, about 50 million acres, or the size of Georgia. 35% of Baltimore County land is private lawn turf. The practice of keeping a tidy, clean, pristine, well-maintained lawn is so ubiquitous, it can often feel hard to imagine an alternative.
<font face=”inherit”>Playing on artist Maia Chao’s “Look at Art. Get Paid” project, “Kill your lawn; get paid!” is an art-exchange offering where artists offer alternatives to suburban lawn-devotees. Canvasing in specific county neighborhoods, a team of eco-art-stewards will offer lawn owners one of the following services:
- Money (or art) in exchange for lawn to meadow conversion
- The opportunity to display a sculpture on their lawn that, from their precarity and size, will discourage and disrupt mowing and treatment cycles, allowing weedy natives to return (inspired by Ellie Iron’s Lawn (Re)Disturbance laboratory)
- Community movement / dance workshops to encourage re-imagination and transformation
nextepochseedlibrary.com
Lawn (Re)Disturbance Laboratory – A collaboration with seeds, time, and weeds
Lawn (Re)Disturbance Laboratory – A collaboration with seeds, time, and weeds
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12 Replies
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Clearly needed project in any suburban development.
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So creative. I love this.
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This is a great idea. I love that it inspires people to uproot their lawn by showing how the alternative can be beautiful.
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Love this too!
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Deeply needed initiative! There’s a lot of misinterpretation out there about what a native plant lawn would look like, and it’s critical to show how beautiful it can be.
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Love this idea! I think the more people that see that this is possible, the more they will consider it for themselves. Reminds me of the children’s book “The Big Orange Splot” by Daniel Pinkwater (which also inspired an entire neighborhood in Baltimore to paint their homes)
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Wow! I just read the book through a video. So inspiring, thanks for sharing! It makes me think about the power of contamination and the infectiousness that normative lawns can have on neighbors and passersby.
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I love the focus on lawns, this was something I recently focused on in my MFA exhibit! I think about the wasted space of lawns and parking lots and the wonders of the depaving and rewilding movement all the time.
https://alexischeiber.art/the-dreaming-manifesto
I think a lot of people want to see more native plants in their yard, they’re just intimidated to get started. I wonder if this project could be about creatively opening access or desire to meadow one’s lawn.
I’m also curious about the ‘diehard’ as the audience focus. I think the desire to sway the most dramatic (such as turning a climate denier) is obviously the most flashy. I feel it is often the passive or overworked individual who keeps their lawn not as a point of pride, but as a point of normalcy/ignorance might be a better and more grateful subject of such a project.
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sorry if this isn’t totally coherent, I’m a little tired! happy to rephrase later.
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Hi Alexi,
I am absolutely fascinated and moved by your Dreaming Manifesto project. The care, the inviting, the poetry and beauty of the offering is inspiring. Grazing through it on my computer I slow down, and feel welcomed. And the offering choices of plant size feels like an incredible scaffolding tool in helping imagine the possible ways the lawn could be something other.
And thank you for the feedback about shifting the focus away from “diehard” and toward passive / overworked lawn owners. That’s a great point, I agree it could be a more generous / successful collaboration. It also makes me more curious about the different factors that may influence the decision of lawn maintenance and if there is research done about who keeps a lawn and why (>Social norms >Respectability politics >Pride>Home owner association rules <font face=”inherit”>>Time>Neglect>Convenience>Landscape </font>Company etc.<font face=”inherit”>). Perhaps the first step for this project is to really hone in on the intended audience, as well as ways to reach them.</font> An ad in the paper? A stand in the street or outside a grocery store with? Or door-knocking house to house with volunteers (anyone interested?)
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I’m sitting and noticing a big cherry blossom outside my house, on the street. It’s the only one on the block. Almost everyone who walks by stops, and I hear exclamations of awe, excitement. I’m thinking of the power of beauty, and Alexi, about the offering you had of different kinds of flowers that people can choose from in The Dreaming Manifesto. Perhaps letting people choose between short, medium or tall, between different colors, scents or other attributes could be one of those tools that make transforming the lawn sexy, fun, attractive. Something about the agency of letting people choose between options to stimulate possibility.
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I love this idea! For those who still want to be deeply involved with their “lawn,” I wonder whether cultivating endemic and edible plants could also be part of this proposal? I am thinking of those who take great pride in their manicured lawns and redirecting that energy for local food cultivation.
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