a New School exhibition on civic urban agriculture and design.
October 1 – December 15, 2010
Opening Reception: September 30, 2010, 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery
Living Concrete is co-curated by Nevin Cohen and Radhika Subramaniam.
Living Concrete/Carrot City features creative and research projects that demonstrate the possibilities of urban agriculture.  Linking sociologist Thomas Lyson’s coinage “civic agriculture” to Josef Beuys’s influential formulation of social transformation and individual creativity, “social sculpture”, the exhibition argues that everyday practices of food production and distribution in cities, in the actions of ordinary people in local neighborhoods, register as quiet but persistent challenges to the agro-industrial complex.
The exhibition is a cross-institutional dialogue with Carrot City: Designing for Urban Agriculture, an initiative of the Department of Architectural Sciences at Ryerson University, Toronto, curated by Mark Gorgolewski, June Komisar and Joe Nasr. Carrot City demonstrates how the increased interest in agriculture, food supply and food security impact urban design and how design, in turn, can facilitate a more robust urban food system   A wide ranging survey of Canadian and American cases, it examines projects at multiple scales – the city, community and knowledge-building, home and rooftop projects as well as a range of products.
Living Concrete showcases design interventions and pedagogies that reconnect people and food production while simultaneously transforming neighborhood livability, health and the environment. Faculty and students at Parsons, Eugene Lang College, and across the New School engaged with mapping urban food and water systems in New York as well as with social innovation and design interventions collaborate in this experimental installation. Maps, interactive websites, garden logs, videos and models, some specifically generated for the show, explore the relationship of urban agriculture initiatives to their local communities and examine the potential and impact of design interventions.
Living Concrete is a platform for discussion rather than purely exhibitory.  Central to the concept is a space for public pedagogy that engages with urban farmers, community initiatives and innovations, designers and artists from New York, around the country and from Canada.  Every Wednesday, public panels will be held in the gallery around such topics as urban agriculture and social change, media advocacy, creative action and role of the university.
Living Concrete/Carrot City is made possible, in part, with the generous support of the Mellon Foundation, sponsored by Eugene Lang College.  Additional support was given by The New School Green Fund and the Office of the Provost Academic Events Fund.  The School of Art Media and Technology, Parsons provided generous in-kind support.