Bite me!
One project on Berlin’s former Airport Tempelfeld tells a different version of the infamous tragedy of the commons: Gardeners struggle not only with kite surfers who claim the windy plane of the airfield, but also with the ongoing loss of public space. As an answer they experiment with urban gardens as free space -commons- opposing the public space increasingly lost to privatization and surveillance.
Perhaps also to surveillance, but probably in a more literal way the fruit trees in Görli cry out: ‘Bite me!’. This is written on 17 recently planted fruit trees. In the open space, used by many, the old apple varieties not only provide a nutritious source of food, but also teach a lesson about their biodiverse origin.
This origin of local food is opposed to far travelled food of a super market, on which roof the viewer finds a heavenly bed. ‘Himmelbeet’ is about to become the Berlin version of a vertical farm. The 700 sm community garden with rental gardens and a café on a former roof top parking lot will soon serve as experimental and educative organic permaculture with terra preta fields.
Teresa Beck in discussion
Why don’t I have a garden?
The film manages to capture a personal view of the urban gardeners and their visions how to turn their cities greener, cultivate their own food and work in intercultural communities. Besides the social aspect, they are also encouraged by political commitment, which in the long run aims at developing new concepts of urban life.
Such a concept is guerilla gardening, on land that the gardeners do not have legal right to use, often an abandoned site or area not cared for by anyone. “I’m born, I have two hands, why don’t I have a garden?, one garden guerilla introduces their motto: Grow it yourself against the dictate of supermarket shopping.
Teresa Beck shows that participatory farming can contribute to sustainable urban development, food security, conservation and education, opposing the privatization of public spaces. In the words of a garden guerilla: ”Berlin should be in a way that if you were a dear you wouldn’t have problems to cross it.”
Filmaker Teresa Beck in interview
Speaking gardens, Trailer:
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