Guerrilla Grafting: fruit activists turn city trees into (free) food sources

2018-06-18T15:28:00-04:00

After pothole gardeners and pavement crack fillers, the Guerilla Grafters are the next urban hacking collective that wants to make streets a better places for everyone. The collective sees grafting branches of fruit trees onto trees in the streets as an opportunity to provide free access to food to urbanites. The process of adding a small branch to an existing city tree is considered vandalism. However, that doesn’t stop the Guerilla Grafters [...].

"The Guerrilla Grafters are not welcomed by everyone," writes Doris Tielemans for Pop-Up City about this branch (no pun intended) of Fruit Activism. "Most trees in cities don’t grow fruit for a reason."

Growing "Fruit Activists" and "social art"

2013-05-13T13:44:00-04:00

The decision to go with “edible art” as part of a larger park renovation, rather than a standard mural, was seen as a way to foster residents’ participation, said Karly Katona, a deputy to Mark Ridley-Thomas, the local county supervisor.

Patricia Brown highlights the work of the group Fallen Fruit, particularly their recent installation of California's first public fruit park in Del Aire, outside Los Angeles. She also outlines a growing fruit-activist movement, who use urban agriculture as a way to explore issues of public health, public space and civic engagement.

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Guerrilla Grafting: fruit activists turn city trees into (free) food sources

Growing "Fruit Activists" and "social art"