Cultivate. The vegetable garden as an autarkic practice

EDITION

2023, Shortlisted

school

ISIA - Istituto Superiore per le Industrie Artistiche, Urbino, Italy

Links

@moemiciviero

“Cultivate. The vegetable garden as an autarkic practice” is about self-sufficiency and is structured in the form of a practical manual for garden cultivation. The term autarky (composed of the words "self" and "to ward off"/"to be strong enough, to suffice") comes from the ancient Greek and means "self-sufficiency". In philosophy it assumes particular importance in the Cyrenaic school where it expresses the ideal of "suffice for themselves", that is being self-possessed by trying to depend as little as possible on the conditioning of worldly things in order to achieve happiness. Starting from this concept and from the punk culture of DIY, the work develops around the practices of self-sufficiency, linked in particular to the cultivation of a vegetable garden: both a practical emblem of do-it-yourself and a metaphorical one of "taking care of one's own sake". The project consists of video tutorials on how growing vegetables from their scraps, still life images of self-built objects used for cultivation, interviews with greengrocers, an agro-technician and people living in ecovillages, landscape photographs of vegetable gardens and an anthotype that personalizes each copy of the book.…