The garden has long been the intellectual, creative, and communal hub of Denniston Hill. What began as a simple project to feed the residents of the Hill is evolving into a larger experiment in sustainable development and community building. During the growing season, the garden produces organic beets, kale, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, herbs, and other local vegetables for residents of Denniston Hill. But the garden is much more than a source of food. It is an ambitious conceptual project that seeks to underscore the relations between the arts and agriculture, theory and practice, and aesthetics and nature that underscore any discussion of sustainable development.
In 2010, we began expanding the original organic garden to incorporate
regional and permaculture growing practices with a plan for
sustaining its growth into the next century. That same year, Denniston
Hill was the recipient of Peter Coffin's "Untitled (Greenhouse)" (mixed
media, 2002). Coffin's sculpture is one of the first in Denniston Hill's
landscape of permanent site-related works. It functions as both a
laboratory for artistic experimentation and a greenhouse for
agricultural innovation. It was the focal point of Denniston Hill's "The
Secret Life of Plants" outdoor film screening series, a "food literacy
program" where art, food, agriculture, and community food politics
intermingled under the summer sky. During this series, local food
activists and farmers came together with artists, architects, scholars,
and local community members to engage in a dialog about local
sustainable food practices. Ethno-botanist Rachel Meyer collaborated
with the garden as a laboratory for a set of experimental Chinese
eggplants she was researching. The garden has also been a classroom for
courses on the arts, agriculture, and landscape that have been taught at
institutions like Hampshire College and New York University.
The end of 2010 saw the initiation of Denniston Hill's innovative garden
fellowship pilot program. This fellowship aims to develop a long-term
relationship between our mission and our site, between house, grounds
and programming through garden related activity. This ongoing Garden
Fellow will build and develop a site-specific and carefully articulated
glossary about the plants, ecology, landscape and histories of Denniston
Hill that will be a resource for current and future residents. With
this deep knowledge of place, we can then offer more than a studio - we
will provide a unique resource to artists as they propose, develop, and
execute their projects in residence.
For more information on the garden's growth, please check out our blog: Watchthegardengrow.
