S.O.S. p:ARK


 


 



S.O.S. p:ARK part of The 5x5 projects,
curated by Amy Lipton, Yard Park, Washington D.C., March 2012
Funded in part by the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, DC Creates! Public Art Program.

St Johnwort, dandelions, timothy, clover, pigweed, lamb’s quarter, buttercup, mullein, queen anne lace, plantain, yarrow

 

Weed is a misplaced plant in the eye of human, but nature never discriminate them. Whether they survive or not depends on their adaptability. Sometimes they are even useful and beneficial to the ecology. We human see them as enemy because they are out lof place and trying to see the situation to best benefit our kind. We gave them name like invasive species and separate other as native. And in any case, efforts to restore ecosystems to an imagined pristine state almost always fail: once a species begins to thrive in a new environment, there’s little we can do to stop it. Indeed, these efforts are often expensive and can increase rather than relieve environmental harm. An alternative is to embrace the impurity of our cosmopolitan natural world and, as some biologists are now arguing, to consider the many ways that non-native plants and animals — not just the natives — benefit their environments and our lives. I see this as a metaphor of immigration issue and how we should see it as positive and embrace instead of reject. Hope this plant based learning will enlighten our human condition.

I like to proposed a field that is left to grow wild and only be mow into a labyrinth pattern to enable visitor to walk into this path and meditate about position that we take and opinion that we had. Ultimately understanding that we are part of nature and migration is a natural process and will continue no matter what. We had to slowly break down political barrier, questioning a nation sovereignty, start formulate a better way we can live together in this world that is getting smaller and homogenized.

If we confine the concept of weeds to spicies adapted to human disturbance,
then man is by definition the first and primary weed under whose influence
all the other weeds have evolved.
- Jack Harlan, Crops and Man

Weed is simply a plant whose virtues we haven’t yet discovered
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

                          

 

Step-by-step drawing on how you can build your own labyrinth.

 

Timothy
Origin: Europe
Habitat: It is food and habitat for wildlife and act as erosion control on slopes.
Significance: It is use to make hay

St. Johnswort
Origin: Europe
Habitat: The leaves are covered with numerous tiny translucent dots that are visible against lights. Rubbing the flowers produces a red stain.
Significance: It is used as antidepressant and sedative and as food preservative for cheese and also as red dye. It is poisonous to livestock.

Mugwort
Origin: Euroasia
Habitat: It can absorb heavy metals and bind them to organic matter
Significance: In European tradition, a tea made from mugwort leaves was used to treat epilepsy, menstrual, menopausal and gastrointestinal problem.

Clover
Origin: Euroasia
Habitat: It has ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen enable it to flourish in poor soil
Significance: tea made from red clover flower traditionally used as a cough suppresant

Dandelions
Origin: Euroasia
Habitat: It produce bright yellow flowers and a great food source for wildlife
Significance: Spring leaves are good for salads and tea from the fresh roots act as a diuretic to treat liver and kidney ailments.

Queen Anne's lace / Wild Carrot
Origin: Euroasia and North Africa
Habitat: It tolerates full sun and dry soil.
Significance: It seed is used in traditional european medicine as a morning after contraceptive and in India to reduce female fertility.

Milkweed
Origin: Eastern North America
Habitat: All parts of the plants are covered with soft hairs and exude milky sap when broken
Significance: It a host plant for monarch butterfly larvae. Young milkweed shoots and leaves are edible when cooked. Seed pod release white fluffy parachutes seeds.

Burdock
Origin: Euroasia
Habitat: It had a rosette of large green leaves and a fleshy taproot that make it hard to remove.
Significance: In traditional medicine of Europe and China, the tea of its root used as a blood purifier.

Chicory
Origin: Euroasia
Habitat: Chicory forms a deep tap root and exude milky sap when broken. It is a common roadside plant that is tolerant to roadway salt and compact soil.
Significance: The root of chicory when roasted and ground as a coffee substitute. It had been used in phytoremediation based on its ability to absorb heavy metals

Blue Violet
Origin: Eastern North America
Habitat: Grow best in cool, moist and shady soil
Significance: Native American used an infusion of common blue violet to treat a variety of minor ailments. Young leavesand flower are edible in spring

Purslane
Origin: Euroasia
Habitat: Grow best in sandy nutrients rich soil in full sun and grew common in neglected landscape, vacants lots and pavement cracks.
Significance: The leaves can be eaten and is a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids.

Plantain
Origin: Europe
Habitat: Disturbance-adapted colonizer of bare ground
Significance: In Europe, plantain is used to treat inflamations, sores and fevers and applied externally to stop bleeding.

Yarrow
Origin: Europe, Asia and North America
Habitat: Yarrow is an extremely drought-tolerant species that grows well in sunny, dry soil. It is common in minimally maintained public parks, vacant lots, rubble dumps.
Significance: European and Chinese folk medicine use the flowering plants as tea to treat colds and fevers