Means of Production Community Garden in North China Creek Park, at the corner of St. Catherines Street and East 6th Avenue. Located in central Vancouver, in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood,
Means of Production started in 2002 with Oliver Kellhammer as lead artist and instigator, working with Vancouver Parks Board and Community Arts Council of Vancouver funding and Environmental Youth Alliance (EYA) as partner. The piece of land straddles park board and City of Vancouver engineering land, and is on lease to EYA. During the planning of the garden, the surrounding community was given notice of the concept via posters and flyers and consulted through public meetings, per Park Board Community garden guidelines, as well as the desire of both Oliver and the EYA to work with the surrounding community. The original planting consisted of artist’s materials, once Oliver’s involvement ceased and some of the original artist’s interest waned, the EYA responded to the desires of the community and coordinated three expansions of the garden: a native plant garden, a terraced fruit orchard and a herb/vegetable garden. In 2007 a few artists that were volunteering in the garden decided to band together, form a collective (MOPARRC) and work with the community and the materials grown on site in a variety of ways.
The garden is managed by EYA is used as a teaching model for youth training in fiber arts as well as overall horticulture and agriculture. In the past, youth interns, volunteers and community members have attended trainings and work days on herbal medicine making and fruit tree pruning among other things. This year EYA is running an 8 month free apiculture apprenticeship program for youth. Artists garden materials are intended for artist use- increasing artist’s awareness of the footprint required in making artwork- “how much land is required to grow what is used in my art” an alternative model to “home depot art shopping”
The process of acquiring materials from MOP is primarily a labour exchange and on occasion free workshops are offered in exchange for materials as available.
For the last 3 seasons willow grown on site has been used by a north shore artist/willow weaver, Ruth Tsachannen, for horticultural therapy with individuals who have developmental disabilities at The Cascadia Society. Ruth and others from Cascadia work with EYA to train interns in exchange for part of the harvest, as well as on site willow construction and willow bed maintenance. An EYA intern Alumni will be doing projects and workshops with dye materials (contact EYA for info) and currently MOPARRC (Means of Production Artists Raw Resource Collective) is managing the majority of materials on site, with the intention of involving community in making site specific sculptures on the grounds that will turn MOP into a “living gallery”, or an “Artist Run Forest”, similar to a Artist Run Centre, the garden will feature works made with materials on site with community involvement- for 2009 workshops are generally the third Saturday of each month throughout the growing season.
