Playground Hijinks by Shaili

Playground Hijinks ie

Add d n a hah S li hai S by

Cover art and back photograph by Addie Shrodes.

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Inspiration

About Playground Hijinks

shailis90@gmail.com, @thefakeshaili

Open House - artist co-operative houses Sugar Shack and Synchronocity, 13-16

m om C de se tsi Hou s e W Villanova House

f thela com/ g LA y. g l b e rin g.or we e n i w r flo e li d dflow W wil

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ort L.A. F ort.

ing en r: d r e a t G Twitt nlond n a Av don. arde Lon vantg Motor @a

Food Forward

Ron Finley South Central

Fruitastic! - interview with Fallen Fruit, 10-12

L.A. Urban Rangers

Twitter: @hiddenla

Ecov illag e

Imagining the Outdoors - street art in LA, 4-9

Inspiration Board - 18-19 2

Technicolor Tree Tribe

L.A.

Manifesto - 3

uforco

Jakob Kolding - Artist

LA Green Grounds .org

Avenue Urban Garden Program

motoravenue market.org

Ted Talk

Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND)

Twitter:

@greenpublicart

Be a collector! Collective learning turns lonely creators into world-changing collaborators. Collectivity can include everything from crowdsourcing from social media sites to talking to people in person and online. It’s about everyone participating to create solutions. There are no experts! Put nature in unexpected places! Nature is not just in the wilderness; it exists in our everyday urban encounters. And when it doesn’t, we can put it there! Food deserts exist in LA, but we can change them by building gardens and parks where strangers can become neighbors and friends. Be an improviser! Play is an essential way we interact with each other and the city. Make room for spontaneity and silliness! The city can surprise us, and that’s a good thing.

.org

Guerrilla Gardener

Don’t wait for place to happen, make place happen! Interventions can create sites for new forms of social interaction — places that start conversations across communities. Do-It-Yourself tactics can change the way people think. They can even change neighborhoods!

thankyo

@AvantGardenerOR

addiecherices@gmail.com

Table of Contents

Playlist - urban playground, 17

Eugene Avantgardeners Twitter: @LARiverAnnex Twitter:

“La Tiera de la Culebra Park: Can Artists Heal Nature?” kcet.org

Manifesto

ou Thank Y g in For Com ming.la

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Most of the earth’s population now lives in cities, so these kind of projects help us design not only better cities, but also a better world. This zine is a collection of projects and people and places that have led us to imagine how urban communities can artistically organize around nature. These communities trespass the boundaries of public and private to take over new places in the city. They urge us to envision an interactive and nourishing city, one that feels like a people’s playground, a community garden, an urban wonderland!

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We’re fascinated by the playful ways creative people and activists depict their surprising encounters with nature in Los Angeles and how communities come together to talk about urban art and nature. So much of this project is indebted to the collaborators we’ve met—the guys of Fallen Fruit and the people we talked with at the art co-ops Synchronicity and Sugar Shack. LA can be isolating, so we’re grateful to have met inventive, proactive people who create common ground between people in diverse communities.

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Hi! We are Shaili Shah and Addie Shrodes, urban wanderers, wonderers, and seekers of alternative interactions with nature in the city. We also sometimes land in the categories ‘adventurer,’ ‘artist,’ and ‘academic,’ but we dislike categories more than the bottom of the blueberry bucket.

Los Angeles And Beyond... Add to it!

Make social art! Social practice art to us is art that produces culture and changes how people socialize. This is about making art accessible; art can be social and sociality can be art. Each community brings its own ideas

and practices to the table, and by learning from those differences, we can broaden how people connect. 3

Inspiration

Manifesto - 3

Fruitastic! - interview with Fallen Fruit, 10-12 Open House - artist co-operative houses Sugar Shack and Synchronocity, 13-16 Playlist - urban playground, 17 Inspiration Board - 18-19 2

m om C de se tsi Hou s e W Villanova House

Food Forward

Ron Finley South Central

ity

ort L.A. F ort.

f thela com/ g LA y. g l b e rin g.or we e n i w r flo e li d dflow W wil

ing en r: d r e a t G Twitt nlond n a Av don. arde Lon vantg Motor @a

Twitter: @hiddenla

L.A. Urban Rangers

ve.c o

Technicolor Tree Tribe

L.A.

Imagining the Outdoors - street art in LA, 4-9

uforco

Jakob Kolding - Artist

LA Green Grounds .org

Avenue Urban Garden Program

motoravenue market.org

Ted Talk

Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND)

Twitter:

@greenpublicart

.org

Guerrilla Gardener

thankyo

@AvantGardenerOR

Ecov illag e

Table of Contents

Eugene Avantgardeners Twitter: @LARiverAnnex Twitter:

“La Tiera de la Culebra Park: Can Artists Heal Nature?” kcet.org

Manifesto

ou Thank Y g in For Com ming.la

llecti

s rk atio a “P cre e dR n a

Woo ster co

BOARD

n”

tlan dia”

Los Angeles And Beyond... Add to it!

“Por

About Playground Hijinks

and practices to the table, and by learning from those differences, we can broaden how people connect. 3

Imagining the Outdoors

LA street art guides our engagement with the urban environment. Crowd-sourced photos from Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter outline a visual map of how we can alternatively access and play with nature in our megacity.

#lastreetart #streetartla #instagraffiti #streetpainting #lamurals #urbanart #moncho1929

Playlist

The warehouse

— a light

8tracks.com: urban playground, by Shails

and airy

space ...

“Los Angeles” – X “Detroit Summer” – Invincible “Walking in LA” – Missing Persons “(Nothing but) Flowers” – Talking Heads “What a Wonderful World” – Joey Ramone “Que Onda Guero” – Beck

where work becomes play.

“Fresh Strawberries” – Franz Ferdinand “Disparate Youth” – Santigold “Get Free” – Major Laser feat. Amber “I Want the World to Stop” – Belle and Sebastian “Wondaland” – Janelle Monae “Water Fountain” – Tune-yards “Ocean Beach Party” – Neighborhood Brats “No Way Down” - The Shins 417

16 16

Imagining the Outdoors

#lastreetart #streetartla #instagraffiti #streetpainting #lamurals #urbanart #moncho1929

Playlist

The warehouse

— a light

8tracks.com: urban playground, by Shails

and airy

space ...

“Los Angeles” – X “Detroit Summer” – Invisible “Walking in LA” – Missing Persons “(Nothing but) Flowers” – Talking Heads “What a Wonderful World” – Joey Ramone “Que Onda Guero” – Beck

where work becomes play.

16 16

The van where it all began!

A country kitchen in LA!

Welcome to the Sugar Shack!

Outdoor patio for gatherings of all kinds.

Twitter: @ sugar shack

15 6

Hidden garden spaces â&#x20AC;&#x201D; can you spot the Sphynx?

615

The van where it all began!

A country kitchen in LA!

Welcome to the Sugar Shack!

Outdoor patio for gatherings of all kinds.

Twitter: @ sugar shack

15 6

Hidden garden spaces â&#x20AC;&#x201D; can you spot the Sphynx?

615

Open House

A stroll through two of LA’s sustainable art co-operative houses A Saturday afternoon at Synchronicity The house hosts monthly art salons, free and vibrant places of ‘artistic reverie,’ music and mingling. synchronicityla.com

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the The Del Aire Fruit Park, an urban orchard in Hawthorne the public sustains, nurtures and harvests. Do you have plans to develop additional public fruit parks? What are the possibilities for projects like this in other cities? Since 2006 we have attempted to realize this dream of installing a Public Fruit Park. However, it wasn’t until 2013, with the support of the LA County Arts Commission and various municipal agencies, that Fallen Fruit was successful in navigating the complexities of installing fruit trees in public space. In Jan. of 2014, we completed the Del Aire Public Fruit Park, which is the first of it’s kind in California. Planting fruit trees was not allowed in public space, so we defined the trees as ‘a sculptural installation of fruit trees in public space.’ In this case, the public fruit trees must be maintained as a work of art and can’t be removed or reconfigured. The ban on growing food in public spaces in Los Angeles has since been lifted. It was exciting to be a part of. “The Endless Orchard” is our new project for Fallen Fruit’s Creative Capital’s Award in ‘Emerging Fields, 2013.’ The first phase of this long-term project will be a series of “Urban Fruit Trials” for LA City and LA County in collaboration with HOLA, Hearts Of Los Angeles. Urban Fruit Trails create “fruit tree corridors” connecting marginalized public spaces Fallen Fruit-made stuffed animals sculpture in Fruitique. between three historic Los spaces between three historic Los Angeles neighborhoods: Chinatown, Solano Canyon and Lincoln Heights. The Endless Orchard project and the Urban Fruit Trails will be anchored by The Los Angeles State Historic Park also in Downtown Los Angeles (re-opening in 2015). Our goal is to create a public artwork that explores public space as a material and an experience of temporal narratives. We will invite the public to plant public fruit trees, collaborate on participatory events, share their stories, and experience the Urban Fruit Trails once they have matured. These public fruit trees connect the historic agrarian landscape of Los Angeles with local and contemporary histories about the neighborhood and become part of an “Endless Orchard” where citizens of the 12 world can collaborate via social media and the real world.

9 9

Open House

13 8

the Del Aire Fruit Park, an urban orchard in Hawthorne the public sustains, nurtures and harvests. Do you have plans to develop additional public fruit parks? What are the possibilities for projects like this in other cities? Since 2006 we have attempted to realize this dream of installing a Public Fruit Park. However, it wasn’t until 2013, with the support of the LA County Arts Commission and various municipal agencies, that Fallen Fruit was successful in navigating the complexities of installing fruit trees in public space. In Jan. of 2014, we completed the Del Aire Public Fruit Park, which is the first of it’s kind in California. Planting fruit trees was not allowed in public space, so we defined the trees as ‘a sculptural installation of fruit trees in public space.’ In this case, the public fruit trees must be maintained as a work of art and can’t be removed or reconfigured. The ban on growing food in public spaces in Los Angeles has since been lifted. It was exciting to be a part of. “The Endless Orchard” is our new project for Fallen Fruit’s Creative Capital’s Award in ‘Emerging Fields, 2013.’ The first phase of this long-term project will be a series of “Urban Fruit Trials” for LA City and LA County in collaboration with HOLA, Hearts Of Los Angeles. Urban Fruit Trails create “fruit tree corridors” connecting marginalized public spaces Fallen Fruit-made stuffed animals sculpture in Fruitique. between three historic Los spaces between three historic Los Angeles neighborhoods: Chinatown, Solano Canyon and Lincoln Heights. The Endless Orchard project and the Urban Fruit Trails will be anchored by The Los Angeles State Historic Park also in Downtown Los Angeles (re-opening in 2015). Our goal is to create a public artwork that explores public space as a material and an experience of temporal narratives. We will invite the public to plant public fruit trees, collaborate on participatory events, share their stories, and experience the Urban Fruit Trails once they have matured. These public fruit trees connect the historic agrarian landscape of Los Angeles with local and contemporary histories about the neighborhood and become part of an “Endless Orchard” where citizens of the 12 world can collaborate via social media and the real world.

9 9

Fruitastic!

An interview with LA-based art collective Fallen Fruit, which uses fruit for social interaction. Their projects include mapping public fruit trees and public installation art among other plant-based awesomeness. What motivated you to start Fallen Fruit? Fallen Fruit began in 2004 as a call to a response for art projects from The Journal Of Aesthetics And Protest. They asked, is it possible to create a project that uses the agency of activism without the idea of protest? We (David Burns, Matias Viegener, and AusDavid Burns and Austin Young in their Westwood tin Young) got together and pop-up gallery and store, Fruitique, 10920 Kinross Ave. got together and thought about our neighborhood of Silverlake and discovered that there were over 100 fruit trees in public space. Most of these trees were overlooked and branches ripe with fruit of all season went to waste, perhaps being compost at best. We wrote a text manifesto calling the question, ‘who is the public?’ and ‘who has the right to the bounty of public space?’ A lot of your work sparks playful encounters with nature in the city. What kind of interventions are you guys trying to make in how we think about and interact with LA? Does playfulness have an important role?

In the early years we became interested in the way you experience a place. When you are young you have less concern about boundaries and you play and make spaces for your imagination within the constructions of public and private spaces. You use the neighborhood to make new rules for play. We embraced this thought in the Public Fruit Maps. The maps are limited in the amount of information they present, they are more of a treasure hunt and less an alternative to shopping.

Tell us about your new/future projects, like Urban Fruit Trails. What kind of effect do you hope these projects will have on LA communities?

Urban Fruit Trails is one of the new Fallen Fruit projects that we are excited about. It’s collaboration with HOLA (Heart Of Los Angeles) and the citizens of the neighborhood of Westlake in Los Angeles. It’s a unique project for us in a few ways. First, this will become the second Public Fruit 10 Park in California and the second in LA County, but Urban Fruit Trails

is more than an “orchard” — it is a geographic overlay of fruits planted within and along the margins of public space in a neighborhood that has been itself overlooked for a generation. We are enthusiastic about creating new urban experiences that are naturally about sharing resources and creating community through a series of walking trails that connect two historic parks, McArthur Park and Lafayette Park. A connectedness to place is one of the impulses for our projects, and Westlake is a community that historically welcomed incoming new residents. What music, art, or writing inspires you? We like a wide palette of hyperbolic music, but concept albums are at the core of essentially important things to listen to regularly. Everything from The Doors LA Woman, Pink Floyd, but also Jerry Garcia and Dave Grisham’s Shadygrove, This Mortal Coil, The Angelic Conversation the soundtrack for Derek Jarman’s film, Eric Satie’s piano compositions, Sea Change by Beck and more upbeat stuff too like Kid A by Radiohead, the timeless anthems of the B52’s and OMD’s Dazzle Ships, for example. Right now, we are collecting songs about fruit — We have a playlist on Spotify and there are hundreds of songs many of which we never heard before. We love fruit songs!! Given the climate and sheer abundance and variety of fruit produced in Southern California, one could reasonably argue that Fallen Fruit is a project that could have only begun in Los Angeles. What are some of the unique challenges that you have faced when you’ve been invited to extend your practice to a different part of the world? Fallen Fruit’s projects use fruit as a common denominator to change the way people think about the world. We use fruit as a way to re-imagine how people relate to each other — our neighborhoods, our family heritage, and our collective histories. For example, from Beverly Hills in California to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, everyone is an expert on the flavor of a banana. Community and collaboration are at the heart of Fallen Fruit’s public participatory projects and commissioned art works. Collaborating with host venues and cities around the world, although the complexities of culture shift with overlays of different histories and geographies, there are fundamental aspects of humanity everywhere we go — community rituals, sharing stories and a love for fruit. We find that people worldwide are interested in sustainability, increasing public resources and our collective connection with family histories. Everywhere we create projects, people are happy to share stories and memories about fruit. We’ve also discovered cities that already use fruit to embellish and decorate their city streets like the Bitter Orange trees in Madrid, Spain and Guadalajara, Mexico and and the Olive trees in Athens, Greece. 11 One of your most generous projects is the establishment of

Fruitastic!

Tell us about your new/future projects, like Urban Fruit Trails. What kind of effect do you hope these projects will have on LA communities?

Open House

13 8

the Del Aire Fruit Park, an urban orchard in Hawthorne the public sustains, nurtures and harvests. Do you have plans to develop additional public fruit parks? What are the possibilities for projects like this in other cities? Since 2006 we have attempted to realize this dream of installing a Public Fruit Park. However, it wasn’t until 2013, with the support of the LA County Arts Commission and various municipal agencies, that Fallen Fruit was successful in navigating the complexities of installing fruit trees in public space. In Jan. of 2014, we completed the Del Aire Public Fruit Park, which is the first of it’s kind in California. Planting fruit trees was not allowed in public space, so we defined the trees as ‘a sculptural installation of fruit trees in public space.’ In this case, the public fruit trees must be maintained as a work of art and can’t be removed or reconfigured. The ban on growing food in public spaces in Los Angeles has since been lifted. It was exciting to be a part of. “The Endless Orchard” is our new project for Fallen Fruit’s Creative Capital’s Award in ‘Emerging Fields, 2013.’ The first phase of this long-term project will be a series of “Urban Fruit Trails” for LA City and LA County in collaboration with HOLA, Hearts Of Los Angeles. Urban Fruit Trails create “fruit tree corridors” connecting marginalized public spacFallen Fruit-made stuffed animals sculpture in Fruitique. es between three historic Los Angeles neighborhoods: Chinatown, Solano Canyon and Lincoln Heights. The Endless Orchard project and the Urban Fruit Trails will be anchored by The Los Angeles State Historic Park also in Downtown Los Angeles (re-opening in 2015). Our goal is to create a public artwork that explores public space as a material and an experience of temporal narratives. We will invite the public to plant public fruit trees, collaborate on participatory events, share their stories, and experience the Urban Fruit Trails once they have matured. These public fruit trees connect the historic agrarian landscape of Los Angeles with local and contemporary histories about the neighborhood and become part of an “Endless Orchard” where citizens of the world can collab12 -orate via social media and the real world.

9 9

Open House

13 8

9 9

The van where it all began!

A country kitchen in LA!

Welcome to the Sugar Shack!

Outdoor patio for gatherings of all kinds.

Twitter: @ sugar shack

15 6

Hidden garden spaces â&#x20AC;&#x201D; can you spot the Sphynx?

615

The van where it all began!

A country kitchen in LA!

Welcome to the Sugar Shack!

Outdoor patio for gatherings of all kinds.

Twitter: @ sugar shack

15 6

Hidden garden spaces â&#x20AC;&#x201D; can you spot the Sphynx?

615

Imagining the Outdoors

#lastreetart #streetartla #instagraffiti #streetpainting #lamurals #urbanart #moncho1929

Playlist

The warehouse

— a light

8tracks.com: urban playground, by Shails

and airy

space ...

where work becomes play.

16 16

Imagining the Outdoors

#lastreetart #streetartla #instagraffiti #streetpainting #lamurals #urbanart #moncho1929

Playlist

The warehouse

— a light

8tracks.com: urban playground, by Shails

and airy

space ...

where work becomes play.

16 16

Inspiration

About Playground Hijinks

Imagining the Outdoors - street art in LA, 4-9

Playlist - urban playground, 17 Inspiration Board - 18-19 2

f thela com/ g LA y. g l b e rin g.or we e n i w r flo e li d dflow W wil

tlan dia”

m ve.c o

ity

ort L.A. F ort.

ing en r: d r e a t G Twitt nlond n a Av don. arde Lon vantg Motor @a

Food Forward

Ron Finley South Central

m om C de se tsi Hou s e W Villanova House

L.A. Urban Rangers

Twitter: @hiddenla

Fruitastic! - interview with Fallen Fruit, 10-12 Open House - artist co-operative houses Sugar Shack and Synchronocity, 13-16

Technicolor Tree Tribe

L.A.

Manifesto - 3

uforco

Jakob Kolding - Artist

LA Green Grounds .org

Avenue Urban Garden Program

motoravenue market.org

Ted Talk

Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND)

Twitter:

@greenpublicart

.org

Guerrilla Gardener

thankyo

@AvantGardenerOR

Ecov illag e

Table of Contents

Eugene Avantgardeners Twitter: @LARiverAnnex Twitter:

“La Tiera de la Culebra Park: Can Artists Heal Nature?” kcet.org

Manifesto

ou Thank Y g in For Com ming.la

llecti

s rk atio a “P cre e dR n a

Woo ster co

BOARD

n”

“Por

Los Angeles And Beyond... Add to it!

and practices to the table, and by learning from those differences, we can broaden how people connect. 3

Inspiration

About Playground Hijinks

Imagining the Outdoors - street art in LA, 4-9

Playlist - urban playground, 17 Inspiration Board - 18-19 2

f thela com/ g LA y. g l b e rin g.or we e n i w r flo e li d dflow W wil

tlan dia”

m ve.c o

ity

ort L.A. F ort.

ing en r: d r e a t G Twitt nlond n a Av don. arde Lon vantg Motor @a

Food Forward

Ron Finley South Central

m om C de se tsi Hou s e W Villanova House

L.A. Urban Rangers

Twitter: @hiddenla

Fruitastic! - interview with Fallen Fruit, 10-12 Open House - artist co-operative houses Sugar Shack and Synchronocity, 13-16

Technicolor Tree Tribe

L.A.

Manifesto - 3

uforco

Jakob Kolding - Artist

LA Green Grounds .org

Avenue Urban Garden Program

motoravenue market.org

Ted Talk

Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND)

Twitter:

@greenpublicart

.org

Guerrilla Gardener

thankyo

@AvantGardenerOR

Ecov illag e

Table of Contents

Eugene Avantgardeners Twitter: @LARiverAnnex Twitter:

“La Tiera de la Culebra Park: Can Artists Heal Nature?” kcet.org

Manifesto

ou Thank Y g in For Com ming.la

llecti

s rk atio a “P cre e dR n a

Woo ster co

BOARD

n”

“Por

Los Angeles And Beyond... Add to it!

and practices to the table, and by learning from those differences, we can broaden how people connect. 3

Playground Hijinks ie

Add d n a hah S li hai S by

Cover art and back photograph by Addie Shrodes.

des

o Shr