John Bela with Urban Campesinx / Hummingbird Farm: Garden to Transform Hatred into Love

On the occasion of the Bonnie Ora Sherk: Life Frames Since 1970 exhibition, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture (FMCAC) commissioned a pop-up ethnobotanical teaching garden from urbanist and artist John Bela, accompanied by Urban Campesinx / Hummingbird Farm Sunday workshops.

Like Sherk’s groundbreaking Portable Parks, The Garden To Transform Hatred Into Love remade an industrial, asphalt landscape into a healing environment. A garden enclosure held oak logs harvested from fallen trees and inoculated with edible and medicinal mushroom species. Garden beds featured California native and regional medicinal plants. A central teaching hut offered an arbor space for quiet meditation, gathering, storytelling, and skill shares. A modified beehive invited visitors to inscribe sentiments of hatred which where then burned in a ceremonial fire. Every Sunday throughout the project, the Urban Campesinx / Hummingbird Farm collective led a series of workshops and knowledge sharing sessions on topics such as queer ecology, Indigenous land stewardship, and growing and preparing herbal medicines to ease stress and trauma. Amidst soil, seeds, and laughter, we learned about sustainable gardening practices and celebrated the profound impact of communal efforts in urban renewal and ecological awareness.

The Garden To Transform Hatred Into Love was free and open to the public daily from Saturday, January 13, 2024 through Sunday, March 10, 2024. All materials from the garden were reused or recycled. Garden plantings have found a permanent home at Hummingbird Farm where they are thriving. Oak logs inoculated with mushroom species were distributed to workshop participants. The teaching hut / arbor structure was gifted to the City College of San Francisco Horticulture program and where it will support ongoing outdoor learning.

Collaborators: Tere Almaguer and Urban Campesinx / Hummingbird Farm || Luke Hass Fine Gardens || Lili Badawi and Giovanni Pasquini || Viola Toniolo || Thank you Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, all of the teachers, volunteers, and workshop participants that were part of this beautiful garden. We are honored to carry forward Bonnie Ora Sherk’s Legacy of environmental activism and stewardship.