This site documents my work on urban agriculture. It explore this subject through a nexus of food, art and research, from quantitative mapping to creative and cultural responses such as costumes, hand-drawn maps, and group city walks.
I have been fascinated by differing yet interconnected question around food production in cities, broadly asking, what does an “Edible City” look and feel like? How extensive will it be? Or what cultural practices might emerge in a city of productive soil, edible plants, and small scale agriculture? A city where open spaces, offices corners and rooftops find room for greenhouses, vegetable gardens, and livestock? Where harvests travel less and are more visible, where food is fresh, not because it has been chilled for thousands of miles but because you just picked it.
The need for the Edible City becomes urgent as we become a globally urban species, and that these megacities can, and should, grow part of the food they consume, rather than rely wholly on external agriculture. This is likely to happen when countries enter into a period of crisis, but how can we embrace urban agriculture in permanence, as a necessary step towards more sustainable urbanism?
I edit the site myself and it’s constantly evolving as I find time to upload other text and images. I treat it like a living archive so you find some pages blank or unfinished! I have also included some film work pre-2004.
Please feel free to send me comments or questions to mikeytomkins at gmail dot com.
