“Eden Reframed: An Ecological and Community-based Art Project”

Mixed media including permaculture design, 75’x75 x8’, Burton Adventure Recreation Center, 10500 SW 228th St, Vashon Island, WA, 2011 to the present.


“Eden Reframed: An Ecological and Community-based Art Project” contains a food forest, a soil remediation bed and a story hive. It uses permaculture design principles to demonstrate how to make a low maintenance perennial garden that feeds visitors, cleans up toxic heavy metals in the soil with plants and mushrooms and archives the stories of farmers, gardeners and visitors. They were asked why they plant seeds in a time of ecological crisis and their stories were written on pieces of cedar treated with bees wax and place in the cubbies and drawers of the story hive, where people can read them and contribute their own story. Opened to the public in 2011, Eden Reframed offers the public a meditative space where events honoring the solstices and equinoxes take place. This project was funded by the Royalty Research Foundation and was originally created for a contaminated area, a “brown field” on Vashon Island, but the owners changed their minds, and the project was resited at one of the Vashon Parks. A precursor to this project was a series of digital photo collages entitled Reframing Eden (2010) exhibited on Vashon Island at Valise Gallery and featured in slide shows by Lucy Lippard.