City Farm, Clybourn and Cleveland Avenues, Chicago, from the series "Sweet Earth: Experimental Utopias in America"

About this artwork

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Photography and Media

Artist

Joel Sternfeld

Title

City Farm, Clybourn and Cleveland Avenues, Chicago, from the series "Sweet Earth: Experimental Utopias in America"

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

Made 2005

Medium

Chromogenic print

Inscriptions

No markings recto or verso City Farm is a series of temporary sustainable organic farms built on vacant land leased from the city of Chicago. This site is adjacent to Cabrini Green, a housing project whose name has become synonymous with all that is wrong with public housing. Founded and managed by Ken Dunn, a native Kansan with a family background in farming and a master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago, City Farm begins by leasing vacant lots, cleaning them and then putting down a protective clay barrier to prevent leaching of any toxic materials contained in the site. Fresh soil is then brought in and fertilized with discarded trimmings from restaurants and grass clippings that would normally go to landfill. Unemployed and homeless people are invited to apply for apprenticeships and jobs on these sites, as the land is planted with heirloom tomatoes, beets, carrots, potatoes, gourmet lettuces, herbs and melons. When the crop comes in, produce is sold to some of the city’s most stylish restaurants: Frontera Grill, Scoozi, Mod and the Ritz-Carlton. Chefs rave about the quality of the handpicked heirloom tomatoes, often harvested just hours before their use. Proceeds from these sales are used, in part, to allow for the additional sale of City Farm produce to neighborhood residents at much lower prices. In deciding which crops to plant, neighborhood tastes are taken into account. When the land is sold, City Farm rolls up the compost, soil and fencing, and relocates. The city of Chicago currently has about eighty thousand vacant lots. From the portfolio, Sweet Earth: Experimental Utopias in America, 1982–2005

Dimensions

Image: 26.5 × 33.2 cm (10 7/16 × 13 1/8 in.); Paper: 27.8 × 35.4 cm (11 × 13 15/16 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Ralph and Nancy Segall

Reference Number

2008.770

Extended information about this artwork

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