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About
This wesite is an ongoing, ever-developing database.
Please contribute with your knowledge and stories by emailing me
info[at]weedyconnection[dot]com or by contributing to the Blog http://www.weedyconnection.com/blog/
Project Outline
This website will give information and insight into a number of plants, commonly known as weeds, and function as an exchange node for facts and stories.
The aim of this project is to rediscover the traditional knowledge, celebrate the multiplicity of cultures in botanical terms, and learn the legal status of such plants.
The framing of illegal and unwanted flora within a cultural context will draw attention to the concept of permissible species as a social construct. Weeds are defined by a nation's law, and what is declared weed in one place may be a precious resource in another. There is a significant metaphorical connection between this definition of weed and the arbitrary restriction imposed on human migration by national governments.
Here's a review published about another Weed Tour set-up in 2002.
Lucas Ihlein on Weedkiller/Pestcontroller
Dear.....
Out at the Kingswood campus of the Uni of Western Sydney
there is a beautiful decrepid old drive-in cinema. It was operating
from the '60s til 1984, when the manager said that it was the
onset of video rental stores that was forcing him to go outta
business. (Diego found that in a local paper from the time - I love
that such a document can help to pinpoint a transitional moment
in the history of technology)... anyway its now owned by the Uni
and they've used it as artist studios for their masters students,
and a bunch of ex-honours students nearly succeeded in setting
up a gallery in the old projection booth, but the uni shut it down
and now the building is condemned. The whole site is pretty
amazing tho, there are those undulating bitumen crests where
you used to park yer car, and the whole area under the ex-screen
is like a forest of weeds.
It's in this weed kingdom where Diego and Emma located their
project "WeedKiller/PestController" - they created an audio-tour
of the weeds on the site. You get a CD walkman and a glass of
champagne, and follow the trail of numbered stakes hammered
into the ground throughout the scrub. Cheesy instrumental
tracks fade into detailed and quite scientific botanical data about
the particular weed, its origins and distribution, threat to the
ecosystem. It_s hilarious that they've treated lowly weeds with
the same reverence as a botanist would lecture on rare and
exotic succulents. And it_s really interesting, too, to note that
some of the most common plants we see everyday are
classified under the "Noxious Weed Act 1993", and landowners
must "fully and continually supress and destroy all W2 weeds
growing on land for which they are responsible".
The analogy between weeds and squatters is clear to the
artists...it's just as clear that the classification of weeds is
arbitrary, changeable and political (just as has been the
introduction of foreign species (including European humans)
into Australia). Weeds find a place to live and thrive, often in
otherwise inhospitable terrain...
I have a book of short stories by dissident chinese writers from
the 1950s called "Fragrant Weeds"... Tonight Jane cooked
"Foeniculum Vulgare", Caramelised Fennel with Creamy Polenta
- fennel occurs mostly "as a weed of wastelands, alluvial flats,
river banks, roadsides, railway embankments and irrigation
channels. It is capable of forming dense infestations which
exclude other vegetation". It is delicious.
Weeds or Wild Nature
The following article was published in the Permaculture International Journal in 1997 (issue 61) provides an indication of the ideas which are further developed in other writings in Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability and which is the subject of a new book being researched.
WEEDS OR WILD NATURE?
The permaculture movement's development since from its conceptual origins in the 1970's has been closely connected to Landcare and revegetation. The primary agenda of the movement has been to assist people to become more self reliant through the design and development of productive and sustainable gardens and farms. The design principles which are the conceptual foundation of permaculture were derived from the science of systems ecology and study of pre-industrial examples of sustainable land use. They suggested agricultural systems needed fundamental redesign rather than fine tuning. A much greater role for trees and other perennial plants to stabilise the landscape and provide for human needs was one of the cornerstones of the permaculture strategy. From one perspective, permaculture is a revegetation strategy.
The initial permaculture vision involved forests of "useful" species planted in arrays to mimic natural systems. Although food species dominate the strategy for intensive (zone1&2) systems, in more broadacre areas fibre, animal fodder and timber along with passive environment functions are the appropriate "uses" of revegetation. My revegetation manual concentrates on these broadacre landscapes and functions of revegetation. What identifies it as permaculture is the design system approach and the integration of the productive and environmental functions of farm landscapes.
Landcare is concerned with the repair and restoration of Australia's productive land. Its origins were from diverse local rural groups which emerged simultaneously in the early 1980's in several regions affected by land degradation, most notably salinity and tree decline.
The solutions to salinity, erosion, acidification, tree decline and other symptoms of ecosystem breakdown demanded fundamental changes to agriculture. Revegetation with perennial and in particular woody vegetation has been an almost universal element in the response to rural land degradation.
At the same time there has been widespread recognition that indigenous species have an important role for utilitarian, environmental and cultural reasons . Many extension workers and funding groups have gone further in suggesting only indigenous species are appropriate and where farmers have little experience this view has been accepted as the "expert opinion".
The farmers with more experience in revegetation who are driving the landcare push recognise that new resource values must be generated by revegetation if it to become an economically viable part of farming. Farm forestry and fodder trees are the dynamic expanding edge of landcare which is promising to generate wealth. In this context restriction to local native species is akin to try to plant a tree with one hand tied behind one's back.
In urban areas people have been more protected from the direct effects of land degradation. However increasing awareness of both the loss of indigenous species and their under estimated values has become a central issue for many urban environmentalists. The passive destruction of indigenous ecologies by environmental weeds became a primary target overtaking the traditional campaign focus on destructive development projects. This shift can be partly attributed to the success in preventing active destruction of remnant urban bushland. This success can be contrasted with the failure to make significant impact on the structural basis of unsustainable urban development and consumption.
The new focus on the concept of environmental weeds (invasion of non indigenous species into bushland) has been helped by government support and funding for an urban Landcare model of recreating native ecosystems in public open space and urban wasteland. State and federal funding has seen the rapid growth in projects involving the community as well as spawning an urban revegetation industry. The vision involves re-establishment of native ecosystems as the backbone of productive urban and rural landscapes.
Increasingly government and community resources are being used to destroy healthy existing vegetation. The considerable ecological and other values of this non-indigenous vegetation are not considered while the adverse impacts of removal methods (e.g. herbicide) are not properly assessed. The problems of isolated pockets of indigenous revegetation surviving in isolation from surrounding land use are ignored or vaguely addressed by grandiose schemes to progressively get rid of "all the weeds"
Implicit in permaculture strategy is the acceptance that nature is an active designer herself and that it will be the co-evolutionary development of wild systems which may be the real keys to sustainability. Wild nature is evolving new ecosystems from a mix of self reproducing species at an ever increasing speed. This "ecosynthesis" is natures self organising response to the disturbances since European settlement and follows patterns described by systems ecology.
In some areas especially along streams the ecosynthesis process is advanced to the point where forests of mixed native and exotic species are beginning to show systemic characteristics. Study of these advanced examples of ecosysnthesis is conspicuous by its absence apart from a few informal permaculture inspired projects.
Recognition of the amenity values of these areas is begrudging at best while their hydrological and soil building values remain undocumented. Any discussion of current or future resource values is dismissed as something irrelevant to economic well-being in a high energy affluent society.
In a low energy future (which I believe is inevitable ) this process is likely to be more important in stabilising resource degradation (erosion, salinity, acidification, eutrophication etc.) and in generating economically harvestable resources (timber, fodder, food etc.) than either our chosen crop systems or native vegetation.
Much of the criticism of permaculture has revolved around its potential to spread environmental weeds The depth and intensity of criticism of permaculture by some environmentalists seems to revolve around the suggested use of plants which have potential to naturalise.
In fact mainstream urban and rural revegetation activities are major contributors to past and future plant naturalisation but do not draw such vociferous condemnation perhaps because this process is not an intentional outcome. In other words it is the "bad" intentions rather than "bad" results of permaculture which have attracted such negative attention.
In general permaculture has made little impact on public land management policies and actions because efforts to introduce more productive species have not been very successful. Proposed and actual plantings tend to divide into types which;
* require too much care and attention for public land or
* naturalise (given the right conditions) and are therefore deemed environmental weeds.
Most permaculturalists have focused on getting their own house in order, leaving the public land to others. Others have themselves adopting a segmented view of land use where small scale food gardens on private land would be surrounded by indigenous systems on public land.
However permaculturalist along with gardeners and horticulturalists generally reacted strongly in 1994 when the Eltham shire in the State of Victoria attempted to declare noxious and demand the destruction of an additional 54 species on private lands. This led to a minor sectarian war between environmentalists of the permaculture and native persuasions.
Leading proponents of indigenous revegetation acknowledge that a legislated approach to environmental weeds will be ineffective and unenforceable but feel that the public education value override any adverse effects on people's land use rights.
The productive result from this conflict is that the fundamentals of the respective conceptual frameworks are being articulated. Unaddressed contradictions in both positions need to be worked through and practical strategies developed which can be applied by both private landholders and managers of public land who find themselves in an understandable state of confusion.
Ecosynthesis is a reality which few ecologists would deny. From a permaculture perspective concerned with ecological sustainability, ecosynthesis of native and migrant species is likely to provide the most effective solutions to land and water degradation. In addition, ecosynthesis will yield the information on which to base more deliberate design based approaches (permaculture) to productive rural and urban land use.
In the process of dealing with both technical uncertainty and a range of environmental values and agendas, we need to accept that a diversity of approaches will provide the most useful results for the next generation to evaluate and use. Inevitably these will all be real ecological experiments on the edges of the gigantic experiment we call modern industrial society. Wild nature may turn out to be a critical fallback resource for society in crisis and even contribute to new biodiversity adaptive to a planet changed forever by the mining of 750 million years of stored solar energy and 10 billion people.
If we are serious about reducing the environmental impact of our towns and suburbs then we need to focus a lot more on our use of transport, home energy use and where our food comes from and a little bit less on whether our backyard supports three or four species of honeyeater.
In the end, a garden full of local native plants may appear to be environmentally sound but if we include the power station, the market garden, commercial orchard and the rubbish tip in the picture it doesn't look so rosy. I believe the real reason that more people prefer to grow native plants is that it involves less work and skill than growing your own food and that food remains so cheap (while farmers go broke and farmland degrades) that most householders can't be bothered. For those of us committed to household environmental responsibility, an apple is a better symbol than a gum nut.
by
Oliver Holmgren
This project back in 1999 takes the next step. Read on.
GENETICS ACTIVISTS CREATE SUPERWEED
Cultural Terrorist Agency
Natural Reality SuperWeed Kit 1.0, contains a mixture of
naturally occuring and genetically mutated (GM) Brassica seeds
(e.g. Oilseed Rape, Wild Radish, Yellow Mustard, Shepard's
Purse). If these seeds are allowed to germinate and cross
pollinate, a SuperWeed will be created that will be resistant
to current herbicides (e.g. Monsanto's Roundup), thus not only
threatening the profitability of conventional and GM Brassica
crops, but also of herbicide production and distribution.
This kit was distributed throughout the UK to interested
parties along with tactical suggestions and planting instructions.
If released, SuperWeed 1.0 will not only destroy the
profitability all GM crops, but also of conventional and organic
crops. This genetic contamination will be irreversible.
Michael Boorman is one of the California Croppers who held
football match early Thanksgiving morning at the "Gill Tract"
gardens, California, USA, resulting in the destruction of a crop of
genetically-engineered corn owned by the University of
California, in protest over UC-Berkeley signing a multimillion
dollar research deal with biotech giant Novartis.
Michael Boorman of Natural Reality said "Genetic hacker
technology gives us the means to oppose this unsafe, unnecessary
and unnatural technology. I hope that this SuperWeed Kit will
empower others in their actions. We are engaged in a biological
arms race with corporate monoculture."
Heath Bunting is a well known internet hacker activist
responsible for information subversion campaigns against
organisation such as Glaxo, Nike and 7-Eleven stores. He is a
founder member of irational.org collective.
Heath Bunting of irational.org said "Biotechnology is not only the next
battleground on which the control of life and land is fought, but also
on which life itself is redefined. It is essential that the concepts
of property and representation in this arena are seriously challenged."
Rachel Baker is a network activist with a well documented history
of actions against organisations including Sainsbury, Tesco and
American Express. She is also a member of irational.org
collective.
Rachel Baker of irational.org said "Millions of ordinary people
are very worried about genetically modified foods and I am one of
them....With genetically modified foods I believe we have reached
the thin edge of the wedge, we are messing with the building
blocks of life and it's scary."
Michael Boorman email: superweed {AT} hotbot.com
Heath Bunting email: jan99 {AT} irational.org
Rachel Baker email: rachel {AT} irational.org
Hayvend email: hayvend {AT} backspace.org
The Cultural Terrorist Agency (CTA) is a funding agency
committed to supporting contestation of property and
representation. CTA turns it's enemies best weapon, that being
investment, back onto itself.
Cultural terrorism can be defined as an offensive against
dominant systems of meaning, and their defining of reality and
nature, within the realms of propaganda and disinformation.
Website: http://www.irational.org/cta/
Irational.org is an anarcho collective consisting of over
20 people internationally working mainly in the areas of
contestation of property and representation:
Website: http://www.irational.org/
This is a brief overview of Australian immigration since settlement
http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au
Today, four out of every ten people in New South Wales are either migrants, or the children of migrants. Most would have arrived in the decades immediately after the Second World War when the Australian Government actively pursued a policy of 'populate or perish'.
Australia's migration history
For 150 years following European settlement, government policies ensured that the majority of Australia's immigrants were of European origin and preferably British. When the colonies federated in 1901, the first act of the new parliament was to pass the Immigration Restriction Act. By introducing a dictation test, this ensured that 'undesirable' non-European migrants were prohibited from entering Australia and preference was given to British migrants .
Only after World War Two and the near invasion by Japan did Australia look to the rest of Europe to 'populate' the empty countryside and build up an industrial work force. In 1945 Arthur Calwell was appointed the first Federal Government Immigration Minister and set about putting policies in train that would attract over 70,000 migrants a year. At most only half this number could be met from Britain. In 1947 the Australian Government therefore reluctantly agreed to accept 'Displaced Persons', or refugees, from the war in Europe. Over the next five years nearly 171,000 - mainly from Poland, Yugoslavia and the Baltic States - arrived. When this source of migrants was exhausted, the Government signed formal agreements to sponsor migrants from a number of European countries including Germany, Italy, Greece and Malta.
Under these 'assisted passage' schemes, migrants were given temporary accommodation in exchange for guaranteeing to provide two years labour on government projects such as the Snowy Mountains Scheme. Almost 40 accommodation centres were established in New South Wales, often in old army barracks. Families were separated with husbands living in barracks close to their work and women and children staying behind in the migrant accommodation.
Conditions were, at best, basic. Other migrants arrived unassisted and lived - some in comfort, others not - with family and friends, and found work independently of the Government.
Between 1945 and 1975, Australia's population almost doubled. Almost three million migrants arrived, half from Britain and half from other European countries. However it was not until the election of Gough Whitlam's Federal Government in 1972 that the 'White Australia' policy was finally abandoned. The Immigration Minister, Al Grassby, declared in 1973 that 'every relic of past ethnic or racial discrimination' was to be abandoned and migrants welcomed from all countries. By the 1996 Census, the Australian population had reached 18 million including 5.6 million people who had immigrated from over 150 countries.
Belongings provides an opportunity to read some of their personal experiences and gain an understanding of the difficulties, challenges and rewards of migration.
And this is a short introduction to the art of Lois Weiberger, weed propagator
http://kunsthallen.brandts.dk/side.asp?id=240
Since the 1970s, the Austrian artist Lois Weinberger (born 1947) has been developing his own political and poetic concept of nature. His work represents a significant position in contemporary art, contributing to the current artistic discourse on our relationship to nature. The diversity of Weinbergers artistic approach reflects his complex concept of nature, which stays clear of romanticizing of any kind.
Weinberger was made famous by his contribution to documenta X (1997). On disused railway tracks at the Kassel Main Station, he planted ruderal vegetation from European countries usually considered problematical in connection with immigration. Ruderal plants commonly known as weeds and highly resistant to climatic changes and inhospitable conditions have become central to the artists investigations. Weeds call attention to the peripheral, and their nomadic character fundamentally subverts any attempt at establishing fixed borders. They can be said to represent natural guerillas.
Since 1999, the artist has collaborated with Franziska Weinberger. The retrospective exhibition at Kunsthallen Brandts Kldefabrik presents works dating from 1988 to 2004, divided into four themes: The Peripheral, Models, Gardens, and Realized and Non-realized Projects in Public Space. It will be displayed in Kunsthallens new exhibition hall and will extend into the public space and to Kunsthallens new roof terrace in the form of moveable gardens plastic bags or metal containers on wheels, filled with poor soil, seeds and plants from various waste areas installed on the terrace and in Kongensgade in Odense.
Roxy Paine is another artist working with the concept of weeds
ROXY PAINE
[...] In his new work, the artist mirrors natural processes themselves, drawing increasingly on the tension between the organic and the built environment, between the human desire for order and natures drive to reproduce. As Steven Henry Madoff noted in The New York Times, Paine creates work in which the pastoral and the processed bump heads with dizzying force.
Paine has shown his sculpture in numerous exhibitions nationally and internationally. He is currently featured in Ecstasy: In and About Altered States, which runs through February 20 at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles. On view is his highly influential 1997 work, Psilocybe Cubensis Field, for which Paine created nearly 2200 miniature psilocybin mushrooms and affixed them to the floor so that they appear to be magically sprouting out of the woodwork. Paine is now working on a new commission, a site-specific installation in New Yorks Madison Square Park. The commission, which follows earlier ones in the series by Mark Di Suvero and Sol LeWitt, will open in spring 2007.
The artist is engaged in an ongoing ambitious body of work: the creation of large stainless-steel tree sculptures. These range in height from 25 to 50 feet, and are all hand-wrought by the artist. The trees have been placed in numerous important public collections across the United States and Europe, including the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle, the St. Louis Art Museum, and the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery at the
University of Nebraska. The most well-known, Bluff, was commissioned by the Public Art Fund for inclusion in the 2002 Whitney Biennial, and was installed in New Yorks Central Park.
The exhibition of his new work comprises three large sculptures, each of which brings added dimensions to the body of work for which he is best known: highly detailed simulations of natural phenomena, and machines that replicate the art-making process. Weed-Choked Garden is a hand-made vegetable garden where 13 different species of weeds are encroaching upon the vegetables. In this 8 x 11-foot work, the human attempt to impose order conflicts with natural predatory forces, depicting the struggle between the rational and the instinctual, the natural and the artificial.
Unexplained Object is an 8-foot-high cloth-covered form containing 40 pneumatic cylinders. The cylinders push and pull the interior of the form, creating an object that shifts its shape constantly. The patterns of movement, which appear random, are actually defined by a Geiger counter as it detects radioactive particles in the air. The effect is of a trapped form punching outward trying to escape, a metaphor for an elemental frustration that is both geologic and human.
Erosion Machine consists of a robotic arm that traces and cuts patterns into a large block of sandstone. The course of the arms movement is determined by data sets, such as weather conditions and school test results. The work suggests the corrosive effects of human imposition on the environment while at the same time represents the transformation of the banal into the beautiful.
For more information contact Jane Cohan
jane[at]jamescohan[dot]com
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Weeds Committee
