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One Straw Revolution

Three month installation, ECOVENTION exhibit, Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnnati, Ohio, in downtown Federal Reserve Bank Plaza.

Demonstration biointensive organic garden built with local volunteers, using local salvage, organic plants, soil. Harvested food was given to Cincinnati Food Bank. Sculptural planter boxes, soil, compost were donated to Civic Garden Center’s children and community gardens. Curators: Amy Lipton O’Neil and Sue Spaid.

Cincinnati businesses donated the straw, PVC pipe, glass doors, violin cases, cast iron, plastic flowers, sticks and plants needed to construct this raised bed garden.

The garden takes its name from One Straw Revolution, a book by natural farming pioneer Masanobu Fukuoka. With Mr. Fukuoka's method, biointensive farmers plant densely, never till the soil, use chemicals or prune. The addition of beneficial natural predators for pest control and planting lots of different types of plants are encouraged.

The glass doors salvaged from a solarium reveal each layer of decomposing waste from the CAC's last exhibition and gives viewers a ringside seat to the process of composting. The irrigation system made from the PVC pipe links the individual beds to crate a unified system.