THE FUTURE IS OPEN ENDED
At Tulpehaking Nature Center at Capital City Farm
Drone photo by Jay
Artist: Sarah Kavage
Project: Water Spirit
Completed: March and April 2021
Farm Manager: Logan Davis
Caretakers: Walter Roberts & Derrick Branch
Community Liaison: Leon Rainbow
Special thanks to: The Garden State Agrihood Program, Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, Mercer County Park Commission, and all of the volunteers who helped to create and plant the garden. April DeSimone and designing the WE did important work to engage the community, establish a vision for the Farm, and call attention to the history of redlining in Trenton to provide the intellectual underpinnings for this project.
About
The site of this installation — the Capital City Farm — was formerly train tracks and is now Trenton’s first urban farm. The site has undergone environmental remediation and since 2016 has been growing fresh healthy food for the community, largely for the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen.
The artwork is a large, elaborate straw bale garden, a type of gardening that is well suited to urban settings. In addition to adding a highly visible food growing area, the artwork creates gathering spaces and seating, allowing the CCF to begin providing more community space alongside farm operations. Originally planned for the Tulpehaking Nature Center’s environmental education facility, the installation moved to CCF in support of and alignment with CCF’s mission of urban food growing, local employment, and education.
During the community input session for this project, people shared how they felt that this part of the city, on the border of East and North Trenton, had been punished “by lines that other people put on a map." These redlining and urban renewal practices had an outsized impact in Trenton, especially on its Black community. The design of the artwork responds to this conversation by attempting to create a space where people feel like they can envision and define their own future.
Accessibility
As this is a working farm, access is gate controlled. Please join us for volunteer days and events as the garden grows this season!
The gate entrance closest to the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen is paved and step-free. The Clinton Ave. entrance is not paved but step-free. Once you get through the gate, the farm itself is grass pathways that are kept mowed.
Gallery
All photos below by Jaqui Ivey and Sarah Kavage
