Jess Baker – Guerrilla gardening

Guerrilla gardening is described as ‘the act of gardening on land that the gardeners do not have the legal rights to cultivate such as abandoned sites, areas that are no longer cared for or private property.’ It has the aim of improving the environment or producing vegetables or flowers for people to use and enjoy. The art encourages a sense of community by providing food supplies to those that need it as well as celebrating the beautiful creations made by the gardeners. Other purposes of the art include political and social protest interest which provides a peaceful form of activism.

The themes present in the art of guerrilla gardening are transforming natural resources and community. The first theme of transforming natural resources is present in the natural process of guerrilla gardening. As you can see in all the pictures, but particularly in the third picture, you can see the work put into transforming the wooden crates – it is likely that the crates will have gone on to be placed in and around the city in which the gardeners live. Also evident in all 3 pictures is the sense of community present. Teamwork is required to achieve the goal, for example the two people planting and digging in the first picture. Guerrilla gardening can therefore be seen as a bonding experience between communities and cultures by bringing people with the same passion together. This will have knock on effects for the community, such as an improvement in happiness and mental health.

All three images are from the Italian Guerrilla Gardening community from 2011. This particular community began in 2006 thanks to a group of young people from Milan. They describe themselves as a group of green enthusiasts that decided to positively interact with the urban space through small demonstrative acts that they call ‘green attacks’. With this information, it provides valuable context to these images – we can see these ‘green attacks’ being demonstrated and the strength of community in Italian guerrilla gardeners.

Guerrilla gardening is important as a form of activism– as mentioned before, it is an example of political movement as well as having a purpose of connection within a community, without forgetting the imaginative and picturesque impact of the art. It represents an idea of bonding and using environmentally friendly ways of changing one’s community for the better. The simple act of planting flowers and working together is a prime example of how a community can have so many impacts on all counts and proves to be an aspiration as to what we can all do in improving our world.