The public event of Listening to Seeds in Beirut curated by TAP, Temporary Art Platform, took the form of a walk, a culinary performance and an ongoing participatory virtual community garden.
Artist Christain Sleiman and urbanist Chady Rizk took the audience of Listening to Seeds in Beirut for a walk at Jisr El Wati and collected some of the edible shrubs that grow in the area, as a result of arbitrary scattering of seeds. They highlighted the projection of the commons in the act of foraging as it commands an equal share between the forager, their community and the plant itself.
“The understanding of a community garden resonates in Beirut through the act of foraging: we find similarities in principles and practice when taking care of plants that end up belonging to a bigger community than ourselves. This is where the act of foraging comes in to replace the need to physically plant a space and instead, offers the city as a community garden that has been planted through deliberate and accidental human and natural actions. The remnants of green spaces that defy the concrete jungle in Beirut tie together to provide a number of edible shrubs for the city’s inhabitants.
In the near impossibility to plant a garden in Beirut and tackling the questions around community and public, we want to focus on the possibility of a garden that exists in expanded time and space. In navigating notions of migration and displacement, we are asking our collaborators to share which seeds they would like to contribute to our community garden, the seeds that they would like to save for the end of the world, and a recipe that would carry their story alongside it. Our virtual community garden acts like a seed bank, existing through the narratives of those who are contributing to it”. TAP
Christian Sleiman, Hiba Najem and Heather Kayed contributed to TAP and DOTE’s virtual community garden and prepared recipes that would accompany the seeds they wish to leave for the apocalyptic situation we are envisioning.
Here are some reflections by Tamara Saade after experiencing the event:
What happens when we look up? When we look around, or maybe under our footsteps? What happens when the world we built, perfect, and thought we knew so well, surprises us? Mother nature has her own way of making sure she’s not forgotten, and while foraging around Beirut with TAP and Dancing on the Edge, mother nature made sure she left us quite a few surprises.
An hour walking and foraging around Jisr El Wati, an industrial area surrounding Beirut, first sounded odd to me. What would we find there? I spend most of my time in Beirut close to Jisr El Wati, and pass it on my way home, on my way to work, and to meet friends. But did I ever look at it? Did I ever listen to it? To what it had to offer? We wandered around the streets, while our guide stopped to gently pick up a flower or a plant, and explain its roots, its meaning, and its impact. In today’s digital age, we have a tendency to rely on science and technology, forgetting that for years, centuries, and millenniums, humankind relied only on what the earth had to offer. In Beirut, in a city so urban, nibbled by building, concrete, and construction, I wondered what the earth and the soil could offer us.
More than I expected, more than what we deserve.
The wildflowers on the sidewalk are currently being researched as an alternative for cancer treatment. But its flower can be poisonous.
The yellow spots seen all across empty fields in Beirut were originally used as organic and natural dye. So why do we opt for synthetic and imported?
Lebanon is currently going through one of the worst financial and economic crises in its history. By returning to our roots, and to the roots of our land, can we survive? Will we survive?
The lack of green space to build a community garden in a country that so desperately needs one, is just another symptom of this superiority complex in regard to mother nature. We think we can go by, living with our made-up rules, and rule over what was here millions of years before us. But it only took an hour walking around an industrial area of the city to remind me that we are at the mercy of mother nature and not the other way around.
So what if the world ended tomorrow? What if we went to sleep to never wake up, while the earth keeps spinning, the sun keeps rising, and the plants keep thriving? What would remain? All these questions, too simple, too hard, too broad, were conceptualized and reflected on as participatory culinary performance, revolving around the seeds we would save, would the apocalypse come knocking on our door.
Lentil: a staple of Lebanese cuisine, now praised worldwide for its nutritious impact. Sesame; celebrated, reinvited, reimagined throughout the world.
Pumpkin seeds: versatility in a seed, to be spread around.
These are a few examples of the seeds we mentioned, the seed we would lock in a vault, throw at sea, and watch as they reach the opposite shore ready to start a new life.
What seeds would I save? What would I grow in my own community garden? A tad of compassion, a lot of kindness, and a great amount of love, always.
I would save some sesame too, my heritage, the only “you have something in your teeth” I don’t mind smiling with.
Lavender of course, for its anxiety properties, for a whiff of home, and for that sweetness with a chicken broth, in a cocktail, or in salad.
Without ever forgetting my chickpeas, to be grinded, mashed, and mixed with some olive oil and turn into a favorite meal of mine.
It only took an afternoon for me to realize that green spaces are not something we create, we make space for, or we plan. Green spaces are loud, demanding, and independent. They slowly chew their way into our lives. Turning us, into the community they garden and raise.
An Invitation to our Participatory Garden
Our virtual community garden acts like a seed bank, existing through the narratives of those who are contributing to it; we would like you to send us a story of a seed you would like to deposit in the seed bank, alongside a recipe for its use. Please feel free to accompany the recipe with a drawing, an image, or a story you would like to share that reveals your connection to that seed.
Please email us on together@temporaryartplatform.com with your contributions.
Photos by: Tamara Saade
