SW corner of Second Street and Girard Avenue, Philadelphia Soil Kitchen is a temporary, windmill-powered public art project by the artist group Future Farmers addressing issues of sustainability specific to the urban environment.
The project will incorporate community involvement, naturally generated energy, local foods, food exchange, the creative reuse of a brownfield site, and brownfield mapping. Soil Kitchen will provide a stage for interaction, dialogue, and education on topics of sustainability that impact every Philadelphian.
Placed across the street from the Don Quixote monument at Second Street and Girard Avenue,Soil Kitchen's windmill pays homage to the famous windmill scene in Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Rather than being adversarial giants as they were in the novel, the windmill here will be a functioning symbol of self-reliance. The windmill also serves as a sculptural invitation to imagine a potential green energy future and to participate in the material exchange of soil for soup - literally taking matters into oneís own hands. This exchange provides an entry point for further dialogue and action available in the space through workshops, events and informal exchange. Soil Kitchen provides sustenance, re-established value of natural resources through a trade economy, and tools to inform and respond to possible contaminants in the soil. Click here to learn more about the project.
Coinciding with the arrival of the 2011 National Brownfields Conference in Philadelphia, Soil Kitchen is the first-ever temporary public art project to be commissioned by the Philadelphia Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy and is supported with a generous grant from the William Penn Foundation.
Futurefarmers is a group of artists and designers working together since 1995. Their design studio serves as a platform to support art projects, artist in residence program, and research interests.
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