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Summer Homestead

by the Urban Homesteading Project
Francisca Caporali, Laura Chipley and Pilar Ortiz
Site-specific Installation
2008

In 2008, the UHP built Summer Homestead, a cube-shaped wooden shelter, on Governors Island. Over nine weeks, the structure was gradually insulated with salvaged plastic bottles, repurposed as receptacles of organic life. Within each bottle, living plants were cultivated in either soil or water. Viewers were invited to donate plastic bottles and participate in the planting process. As more bottles were incorporated, Summer Homestead took the shape of a collaboratively built public space. At the exhibition’s end the plants were disbursed among the viewers.