Inner-City Cornfield Project

Here, from artist Joanna Lepore, is information about an interesting new food production and art project that will be springing up around Seattle soon.

This summer I have been sponsored by the Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs to reclaim underused city land for public art and food production. We’ll be building raised garden beds in commercial parking strips in high traffic areas of Capitol Hill, the CD and Rainier and planting them with a strikingly multi-colored heirloom variety of corn. By early August they will provide a unique experience to passers-by; by September they will supply food to the immediate community through Lettuce Link and St. Mary’s food bank.

I’ve chosen to focus on corn because of its familiarity, high-caloric density, and its striking appearance in urban settings. I’ll be working with (so far) Treehouse for Kids, Casa Latina, and Illuminations Pre-School to plant, water, cultivate and eventually harvest the corn.

Want to get involved? We start building beds on the 25th and transplanting corn in the following week. I’m also still looking for sites within neighborhoods that might be able to use the food we’ll produce as well as identifying more community groups and neighborhood centers (schools, churches) to partner with.

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