What does it take to transform a barren concrete desert into a vibrant garden of colors? It took a Master Plan developed by Bonnie Ora Sherk, aSF Community Challenge Grant from the San Francisco City Administrator’s Office, a great contractor to remove tons of asphalt and concrete, and teams of enthusiastic students and volunteers to move soil and start planting an ecological wonderland, transforming the formerly barren, dull, and lifeless Rear Yard of James Denman Middle School, in just a couple of months. (more…)
A Living Libraryis looking for 20 exceptional Middle School & High School students to join its A.L.L. Green Futures Paid Internship Program as A.L.L. Eco-Stewards for the 2018 Spring Semester. Immerse yourself in a hands-on program that integrates many positive ecological disciplines into two-hour sessions, three times a week! Whether you’re getting your hands dirty at one of the OMI/Excelsior Living Library Think Park’s Gardens, or learning about the latest organic edibles, the experiences that A.L.L. Eco-Stewards learn will stay with them for a lifetime. Earn community service hours or a monetary stipend by participating in the Program.
As we were finishing our planting and plant establishment activities with our California Strategic Growth Council Grant, the Bernal Heights Living Library & Think Park Nature Walk continued to grow and thrive, as we planted, weeded, and watered, thus accomplishing much more to beautify the diverse parks, schools, and street environments of the neighborhood. This Grant has made a huge impact on this community by transforming formerly disconnected and uninteresting areas into new places of beauty and health for all species.
During this period, we had the great support of San Francisco Recreation & Park Department Apprentices – very hard workers - who were able to make many additional California native drought tolerant understory plantings as well as accomplish other plant establishment activities including mulching many areas in St. Mary’s and Holly Parks.
The Native Americans called Roosevelt Island, Minnehanonck, meaning ‘It’s nice to be on the island’. Once infamous for its prisons and asylums, the two-mile-long island in New York City’s East River, located between Manhattan Island and the borough of Queens on Long Island has slowly emerged as a home to high-rise residential buildings. Right in the middle of the town, on an L-shaped plot just south of 504 Main Street, there lies a beautiful patch of green — the Roosevelt Island Living Library & Think Park, an ecological artwork created by Bonnie Ora Sherk, her non-profit organization Life Frames, Inc., and community members that engages the local schools and adults; educating them about gardening, ecology, multi-arts, literacy, nutrition, and local history through hands-on, standards-based Common Core learning programs.
Bonnie Ora Sherk andA Living Library (A.L.L.)have been recognized and featured in one of the most prestigious contemporary art exhibitions in the world, The Venice Biennale 2017. The 57th edition of La Biennale, also known as the Olympics of the Art World, opened on May 10, 2017 and will continue through November 26, with an estimated attendance of more than 500,000 visitors. ALiving Library is exhibited as a part of Bonnie Ora Sherk’s installation Evolution of Life Frames: past, present, future, in the Arsenale in the Pavilion of the Earth, dedicated to the environment, ecological, and communitarianism movements — one of the nine themed sections of the exhibition curated by Christine Macel, also Chief Curator of the Pompidou in Paris, France. Additionally, Bonnie Ora has been invited to return to Venice and La Biennale to give a public talk on her work on October 7, and then will give another public talk and workshop on A Living Library in Zurich, Switzerland on October 12 and 13th at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste / ZHdK.
Her two-part installation in La Biennale also features Crossroads Community (the farm) — a pioneering collaborative artwork involving urban agriculture, multi-arts, and environmental education — that resulted in Potrero del Sol Park, adjacent to the Chavez/ 101 Freeway Interchange. From 1974 to 1980, Sherk was the Founding Director and President of Crossroads Community (the Farm) which has been recognized as one of the first Alternative Art Spaces in the United States. Her installation includes the original drawings she made for the Park. A video featuring her and her way of working has been published on the official website of The Venice Biennale 2017.
