Forum for Radical Imagination on Environmental Cultures
A program of The Nature of Cities, FRIEC is a platform for nurturing humanity’s sacred cultural relationships with urban nature. We produce place-based storytelling (essays, poetry, books, and films), and events (exhibitions, residencies, and transdiciplinary events) that inspire direct ecological actions in local landscapes.
“What I like about this landscape is that it’s not painted… I can move around into it and feel it. I think about all the things I can find there. But, after I leave this picture, something always changes, and I do too.” —Gabriela Villate, 7 years old People see a face in the landscape, […]
“Threats to wetlands include unsustainable urban development, pollution from cities, industry, agriculture, and invasive species, to name a few. But the biggest threat is one of perception.” The Ramsar Convention (also known as Convention on Wetlands) is the first of the major intergovernmental convention on biodiversity conservation and wise use. It was signed in 1971, […]
“Call and response as a means of dialogue: Physical interventions call out some aspect of the natural systems and infrastructure and, through community engagement activities, the people of Milwaukee respond to and activate the sites.” As an artist, having the opportunity to develop a project at the scale of a city has been a remarkable […]
Recently, The Nature of Cities launched Up Against the Wall: A Gallery of Nature-Themed Graffiti and Street Art, soliciting graffiti and murals celebrating nature in the city. I submitted images of what I believe to be the largest hand-painted wall mural on a building in North America. “When it comes to community murals, nothing substitutes […]
A review of Urban Nature: Poems About Wildlife in the City. 2000. Edited by Laure-Anne Bosselaar. Milkweed Editions, Minneapolis. ISBN: 1571314105. 265 pages. Buy the book. How can poems advance our understanding of nature in cities? If cities themselves are ecosystems of people, nature, and infrastructure, it follows that these elements can coexist in a […]
Just before 10 am one Sunday this June, 300 people prepared for a boat ride on the River Spree, lining up in a park next to the longest surviving stretch of the Berlin Wall. The boat was a cheerful blue and yellow passenger vessel, mostly used for river tourist excursions and dinner cruises. But this […]
A review of Refuge in Refuse: Homesteading Art and Culture, an exhibition curated by Robin Lasser, Danielle Siembieda, and Barbara Boissevain at SOMArts, San Francisco, USA. For such a far-reaching social and ecological exposition, Refuge in Refuse: Homesteading Art and Culture centers on a surprisingly small piece of man-made land known as the Albany Bulb. […]