MESSY EDGES – seeing the city as a landscape and nature as communication.

What role does nature have in a city? Is it ornamental, functional, and can it be accepted as feral? MESSY EDGES explores social norms of green maintenance and how alternative communications can create more meaningful connections with nature. ‘Messy’ is a social perception of nature’s structural diversity. ‘Edges’ are both borders for organization and diverse meeting points.

Most of the human population lives in cities, so they have a huge outreach potential. As the urban landscape grows it is important to give space and maintain our connection to nature in it. Cities should priorities incorporating more biodiversity, not only ornamentally but functionally and freely. Through hands-on interaction, we can work on the human-nature disconnect.

For decades, different movements, like Guerrilla gardening, have actively worked on bringing More recently, urban planning has picked up on rewilding to integrate natural ecosystems into the built environment. This multispecies urbanism perspective widens those we consider in the cityscape. The awareness of the importance is growing however; there are still many social norms about what nature should look like in cities. Trimmed evergreens, aligned trees, and mowed lawns. A shift means challenging current aesthetic expectations and power dynamics of where nature is and how it is maintained in our cities.

Reducing human dominance over nature does not conflict with improving human wellbeing

– Bonthoux S., Chollet S.

If we understand this in a highly human-dominated habitat, with limited space and sheared green areas, then we can better connect and value nature everywhere. The city is the one place that needs more interaction with humans in nature. Not in the form of maintenance but in the form of cohabitation.

I tried to work in line with the local municipality using organic material to see how alternative forms of Visual Communications can influence social norms of urban green and nature maintenance in a city. Throughout the MESSY EDGE exploration, I focus on 3 site-specific landscape interventions and conclude my process and research in an exhibition.

Landscape Interventions

01 Soil Shadows

The built environment tends to overshadow nature’s ability to thrive. To reflect that, I carved out the shadows of Holding Surplus House into the lawn. Holding Surplus House is a dynamic exhibition space that explores how to live sustainably across species. The edges in the lawn grew back, showing how nature will find ways to bounce back, especially when given the space.

Växjö (LNU), Holding Surplus House.

02 Edge Exploration

While I waited for permission to use the municipality’s land, I experimented in the countryside. Kultivator let me into their land to explore more freely.

Kultivator is an independent art and agriculture research space.

Öland (Dystad), Kultivator.

03 Tipi för Träd

Since the municipality maintains and owns most of a city’s public space, it was important to collaborate with them. This was a trial to see how grassroots ideas and top-down systems can work together. It took a lot of emails and adapting my ideas to fit with the municipality’s objectives to get permission. In a community event, we planted a tree with landscape art in Norrliden next to an existing biodiversity project by the group Änger i Kalmar.

Kalmar (Norrliden), Änger i Kalmar.

Exhibition: Museum of the Future

In a collective Solarpunk exhibition, Museum of the Future, I mapped my research and communication interventions. Each folder had an illustration, a manifestation, and real-life examples of a more ecological city. Rewilding and retrofitting the urban environment has practical solutions and is definitely possible.

If there’s one place that needs more human-nature interaction it’s the city— not through maintenance but interaction and cohabitation. This understanding and engagement in a highly human dominated habitat, with limited space and sheared public green areas is fundamental. Municipal green spaces don’t only maintain greenery but the opportunity of connecting to the natural environment. If we understand this in a city, then we can better connect and value nature everywhere.

Ölands Museum Himmelsberga.

We can no longer design a system that dissociates us from our ecological home

– Tao Orion

Beyond maintenance -> more interaction. Push communication to be an interaction.

Glossary + References

Guerrilla Gardening: ngroups or individuals of planting or cultivating without permission or legal rights. Often in abandoned sites, neglected areas, or on private property.
Urban (re)wilding: process of integrating nature more into the urban landscape.
Multispecies Urbanism: a study and perspective that values and considers multiple perspectives and influences from fungi, microorganisms, animals, plants, and others. Coined in 2018 by Debra Solomon artist, social scientist, and infrastructure activist.
Solarpunk: speculative future and movement where people can live and thrive in harmony with technology and nature.

Bonthoux S., Chollet S., (2024) Wilding cities for biodiversity and people: a transdisciplinary framework. Volume 99, Issue 4 August 2024 Cambridge Philosophical Society. First published: 21 March 2024. https://doi-org.proxy.lnu.se/10.1111/brv.13076
Orion, T. (2015). Beyond the war on invasive species: A permaculture approach to ecosystem restoration (1st ed.). Chelsea Green Publishing. IBSN 978-1-60358-563-7
Sretenović D. and Mežnarić Osole. G., (2024, May 20). MULTISPECIES URBANISM DEPARTMENT with Debra Solomon, [Season 1. Episode 2]. The School of Feral Grounds. KraterCollective..https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/multispecies-urbanism-department-with-debra-solomon/id1738631651?i=1000656088029