Barging in With the Questions: Swale and the Art of a Floating Food Forest
According to the New York City Parks Department;
In other words, foraging, or searching for and collecting food from a public or uncultivated space, is not allowed in New York City Parks. This is probably a restriction that is of little concern for most New Yorkers. But for people for whom fresh produce is prohibitively expensive or not locally available, the accessibility of fresh produce is not something that is taken for granted. And so how, in a city as densely populated as New York, can fresh produce be made accessible to as many people as possible? This is the question Mary Mattingly is exploring through Swale, a floating barge which houses a food forest that is open to the public for exploring and foraging. Because Swale is on the water it is subject to completely different rules and regulations as land based projects. The idea then, is that Swale can be docked next to public parks and serve as a complement to the park while posing questions about how we use our public spaces.
Mattingly started Swale in 2016 through a grant from A Blade of Grass, an organization that examines the meaning of socially engaged art. But this wasn’t her first floating endeavor. In 2009 she worked on another water based project, The WaterPod, “an eco-floating habitat with systems to generate food, water, and energy.” The permitting process for water based projects was even more strict at that time, for example there was a law that stated that a boat could not dock in a public space in NYC for more than two weeks, the reasoning being that after that time the shadow of the boat underneath the water would change the ecosystem. By 2016 the rules had loosened and Mattingly was already familiar with the permitting process — which didn’t make starting Swale smooth sailing but it did made things easier. Once the Swale team received the permits they rented a barge from King Marine in New York and covered it with a landfill liner and then lots of gravel and some lava rock when the gravel got to be too heavy. The compost and plants were donated from the parks department as well as from nurseries, and individuals in the tri state area.
This year Swale has been docked adjacent to the Brooklyn Army Terminal, a complex of warehouses, offices, piers, and docks between 58th an 63rd street in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. But the beauty of having a floating farm is that it can be moved to different locations. When Swale first launched it was docked in the South Bronx, one of the largest food deserts in the US. Swale worked with the Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice to run free public programing and to provide professional development opportunities to young adults in the South Bronx. At every location, Mattingly partners with different educators and hosts workshops on topics from medicinal plants to natural dye and paint making. Dozens of schools and camps come for classes and tours of Swale. In 2016 alone Swale hosted over 60,000 visitors and 100 public programs.
The communal space that Mattingly has worked to cultivate has generated a unique and somewhat unexpected culture of giving. One of the main concerns the parks department has with public foraging spaces is a classic tragedy of the commons issue. They are worried people will take advantage of this unregulated free resource. But with Swale, Mattingly has not found that to be the case at all. In fact, she has had the opposite experience. Mattingly says that while people do take home a lot of what is growing, she has not noticed a major difference from when the forest is being foraged to when it isn’t. She also found that people are so excited about a public space they could engage with that many people have wanted to contribute by bringing plants and taking care of the space.
Since Swale is reliant on grants its viability from summer to summer has been very touch and go. The team didn’t think they would be able to operate the barge this year until they received a grant from the army terminal. Swale has brought a fresh set of faces to the otherwise industrial area and so the army terminal is currently working towards giving Swale a long term home there as a part of their initiative to incorporate more family oriented spaces. This would make a huge difference for Mattingly and her team as it would allow them to care for the forest and plan in a more long-term way.
But whether the farm on the barge continues, Swale has already had a measurable impact on New York City public spaces. In Concrete Plant Park, in South Bronx, where Swale was docked initially, the parks department has agreed to create a trial food forest. If successful, it could serve as a model for other parks in the city. Mattingly and the Swale team have also acquired a plot in the loop at Governors Island alongside Grow NYC and Earth Matter. The plot is three times the size of the barge and since Governors Island is under state jurisdiction they only require proper signage in order to allow foraging.
Edible green spaces are far from a comprehensive solution to food access in New York. But according to Mattingly, “At the end of the day foraging is another inroad to fresh food in the city.” And either way, the goal of Swale was never to provide all the answers. It’s to ask the questions. When we buy produce from the grocery store, we rarely wonder where and how and under what conditions it was grown, and even labels such as organic or local can be broad or not all-telling. But Mattingly says that when people step onto the barge they question everything. They ask about the quality of the soil and the growing practices and what is edible and the effects that different foods can have. The beauty of Swale, according to Mattingly, is that “as a space that is already so unexpected and seemingly out of place it really encourages questioning where we don’t usually question our food systems and how food gets to our table.”
To learn more about Swale visit their website, or in person at the Brooklyn Army Terminal,Pier 4 at 58th Street, Saturdays and Sundays between 12PM and 6PM, now through August 26th.
