Barcelona is known for their world-class soccer club, FC Barcelona, amongst their beaches and people. Prior to visiting Barcelona, I was under the impression that there was no need for community gardens in Barcelona. This conclusion was formed through my own perceptions of Europe that I saw through Instagram and other social media outlets. I expected Barcelona, a big city with so much history, to have no need for gardens and no space for them either. Arriving to Barcelona, my perception was completely changed in regards to their community gardens and commitment to fighting for social justice issues. Barcelonans have a huge commitment to reclaiming space because of the history of Catalonia and their politics of trying to receive their independence from Spain. As I learned more about the gardens in Barcelona, I learned how complex their community gardens are and the services they are providing.

Huertos Urbanos are a compilation of gardens spread all throughout Barcelona. These huertas urbanas are used in Barcelona to recover unused spaces and turn them into cooperatives for distributing organic food to community members. The urban gardens in Barcelona are part of a larger part of a garden collective that connects all the gardens together in a bigger movement. This bigger movement extends beyond re-appropriating land in the city and providing avenues for people to feed themselves. Each of the gardens that are part of the collective are a reflection of the needs and desires for their garden and community. These reflections are seen throughout the vegetables and fruits that they grow, and can be seen throughout the first few glances of the garden. Barcelona has over 20 community garden locations, a great majority for such an urbanized area with little to no free space (Fock 2011).

I was able to get well acquainted with one garden in particular because it was a closer location to my host mom’s house and there were many factors that make this garden successful compared to others. Espai Germanetes, or Jardins d’Emma de Barcelona is a garden and park location on Carrer de Viladomat in Barcelona. This garden was small in regards to the amount of land that was used to grow produce, but it’s location was closer to small schools and living complexes. Their location has pushed the community members to pedestrianization of pathways by the garden, and the release of the Hermanitas space which holds the community garden (Espai Germanetes). This garden is also situated next to a large park with facilities ranging from basketball courts, tables tennis tables, swing sets, and room for children to play around in the park.

There is a stone wall that surrounds all of the park and the garden. Attached to the walls are a schedule of the weekly activities for the space, along with a history and the rules of being in the garden with the majority of the text being written in Catalan (See image Acords Comunitaris). There are also murals that make the surrounding walls their home in the garden. These murals don’t showcase the traditional layouts of families enjoying their time in the park, instead, they showcase the larger social issues that are important to the residents of the community. One of the murals depicts five children holding signs, each sign describing a different need that they deserve to have fulfilled by their community (See Image Murals Germanetes). Their larger statement, Germanetes és del Barri, is written in Catalan and translates to “Hermanitas belongs to the neighborhood.” The five signs being held describe their need for libraries, great schools, a place to play, an institution, and a forest. All these wants aren’t just tied to the survival of gardens, but the survival of the community members. They are part to a larger issue. These gardens provide an opportunity for community members to gather and talk with each other, a characteristic of all community gardens even in the U.S.

In the United States, gardening may take a different meaning at times but gardens also provide a space for dialogue, be it individual or collectively. During the summers, I would volunteer at the Oak Creek Center for Urban Horticulture helping them cultivate and maintain their garden. I would always be welcomed into the space, and our conversations would start with greetings and would progress to issues that were important to us. One particular conversation that has left an impression with me started with talking about the process of cultivating potatoes. We later progressed our conversation into my own personal experience as a student of color at Oregon State University, leading us to a deeper conversation of institutions that weren’t serving certain communities. This conversation is an example of the bigger conversation that needs to happen in the United States but has yet to happen. A small garden was able to provide the space for this important conversation, and it was successful because it was between people that were interested in sharing their own thoughts and ideas openly. These gardens aren’t able to just harvest and grow plants, but they are able to flourish a bigger understanding of people and the things that they deserve.

Gardens in the United States have often been used as forms of feeding families for many years, one of the first organized city gardening programs started in the city of Detroit in 1893 (Dwyer 2011). These first community gardens were started when the country was in an economic depression, and kept strengthening as national events forced community members to seek food sources elsewhere (McKelvey). The industrialization of the United States would have been seen as the end to a shortage of food, but due to the social circumstances of certain communities their access to food didn’t increase as the availability of food increased across the US. These gardens were recently revamped in the 1970’s as a response for the abandonment, increased inflation, and environmental concern in urban areas (McKelvey).

Tied with the availability and use of social media, gardening in the United States has been able to reach a new platform. This new platform has allowed a new type of social consciousness, one that has always been present in community gardening, but is able to reach other people that may not be physically present in the garden.

These visible gardens are going beyond taking space up in abandoned slots throughout their neighborhoods, they are becoming a place for the people. In the United States, gardening has been taken to a whole new capacity. An act that required reclaiming of land, and provided food accessibility to all who needed, has become a leading activity within social justice movements. A great example of the capacities of gardens is Detroit, a city that has one of the largest community gardens in the United States. The hubs of green activity have had a positive affect on their community because these gardens are able to produce 200 tons of fresh fruits and vegetables a year (Dwyer 2011). Garden participants are also eating 2.5 more servings, per day, than other residents, while at the same time their property value near these gardens have started to rise (Dwyer 2011). These communities’ gardens have begun to convey one important factor that has allowed them to be shared with all, even if you aren’t physically present at the garden. This is achieved through a spectrum of art outlets paired with social media.

     Social media has allowed people to share their ideas and their artistic talents with the world. Take for example DJ Cavem Vita, he has become a garden sensation by changing the way that gardening is reaching people. Vita strives to change the mindsets and health of his community by using hip-hop as his main platform. Through his art, Vita has been able to discuss sustainability, organic gardening, and plant based nutrition through his rapping, an outlet that was originally created to speak of the inequities of the black community (Whitfield 2016). The projects that Vita leads are able to bring in other issues into the subject of gardening such as sustainability, music, and education. A prime example of the intersectionality of issues that can happen within gardens.

Gardens are expanding the conversation that people are currently having, and that is the social change that we desperately need. Having political conversation about the inequities and systematic flaws of our institutions is important within the larger society. But so are the conversations that our citizens are having in their daily lives, and within their communities that are actually providing the most meaningful change. These gardens are bringing people together, and they are also showcasing the intersectionality within food accessibility and land reclamation. Noting that these issues cannot be talked about or changed in isolation is vital to the greater social justice issues that many individuals are fighting. It is through these art forms that stem from these community gardens or huertas, that many people have been able to understand and form personal connections in achieving social change.

Although the huertas in Barcelona strive to make change in their neighborhoods, they are also able to bring to light issues that are similarly talked about in the gardens in the United States. And that’s what makes these gardens important. Some of the different attributes that they host doesn’t make one weaker than another, the different lenses that we have and our experiences we have, allow us to see what works best for our community. The exchanges of those ideas allow us to see our own ideas differently, and provide resources that we may never have thought about. These different perceptions of gardens in Barcelona and the US doesn’t make one better than another, but make them efficient in helping the people in their neighborhoods. These differences, just like in social justice issues, cannot possibly be worked on in isolation, one cause cannot progress without progressing others as well.

References

Dwyer, Liz. "You'll Never Guess Which City Is the New King of Urban Gardening." TakePart. N.p., 11 Aug. 2011. Web. 24 Aug. 2016.
 
"Espai Germanetes." Recreant Cruïlles. N.p., 15 May 2014. Web. 23 Sept. 2016.
 
Fock, Stefanie. "Huertos Urbanos." Huertos Urbanos. N.p., 2011. Web. 24 Aug. 2016.
 
McKelvey, Bill. "Community Gardening Toolkit." MP906. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2016.
 
Whitfield, Chandra Thomas. "In Ferguson, City Increases African-American Representation."  NBC News. N.p., 29 Apr. 2016. Web. 01 Sept. 2016.