Community project

Mando's garden

Around this time last year, New York was the epicenter of the coronavirus. My daughter was taking a Montessori school class online at the time. One day, I received an email asking me to take it through the drive-thru as the teacher would hand out seeds. At that time, I was afraid to go outside, but I carefully received them  while keeping a distance of 6 feet. There were two kinds of seeds, one flower seed, and the other tomatoes. So my daughter and I went out to the yard and planted flower seeds with all our hearts and soul. Then, we sang a song, "one seed" (by the Laurie Berkner band) together. 

"​
​ One seed (one seed), two hands (two hands)
Dig a hole (dig a hole), start to plant (start to plant)
Watch it grow (watch it grow)
Pass it down (pass it down)
One Earth (one Earth) spins around (spins around)
Watch it grow, pass it down, one Earth spins around
One Earth spins around  "

(part of the song)
​

​Under the hot sunshine, tomatoes grew well, just like our hopes. So I made spaghetti all summer last year, made and drank tomato juice, and cut it into salads. The tomatoes have grown so big that they are as tall as my daughter's. Corona has ruined the world, but this tiny seed has given us great joy and comfort. Through this, we directly experienced the precious happiness of small things. 

​ We have a good neighbor who is kind and considerate next door. She always keeps her house and yard as beautiful and clean as a work of art. And often have an open mind and share what they have with their neighbors. Someday, she called me to her house and showed me a lovely flower bed in the yard corner. Next to it, she said she would make a garden named "Mendo" after her grandfather and plant vegetables and flowers in it to give free of charge to the neighbors. And after teaching my daughter to plant sunflowers, she told me that she would name her Celina Sunflower. I can't even imagine how big this tiny seed and little heart will grow. So our neighbor will find great happiness in her love and kindness.

 Community art has the position that 'cultural art is a right that everyone should enjoy as a human being. It is not the exclusive property of a small group of experts (professional artists or elites).'  We insist that true art is only paying attention to the person's life and allowing them to improve their abilities to positively impact others' lives.

 Joseph Beuys, a representative activist of community art, said, "Everyone is an artist. Because everyone has the creative ability to live and improve their lives." Michelle, our neighbor is also a local artist with this wonderful community project in this regard. And everyone who shows little art seeds like Michelle is an artist. I hope that there will be more such people in the community so that our lives will be happier and full of joy.


About Joseph Beuys's project.
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“Everyone is an artist,” Political Activism, 7000 OaksDuring the 1970s, Beuys focused much of his energy on political activism, helping to found such groups as the German Student Party, the Free International University, and the Green party, whose goals included worldwide disarmament, educational reform, and environmental stewardship. His well-known slogan, “Everyone is an artist,” was meant to suggest that social transformation could be achieved if every human being applied his or her creative energies toward positive change in cooperative activities he called “social sculptures.” His most famous of these was 7000 Oaks (1982), a massive reforestation project in which seven thousand trees were planted throughout Germany, particularly in areas destroyed by bombing during World War II. In 1997, in homage to his idea, the Walker Art Center oversaw the planting of more than 1,000 young trees in Cass Lake, St. Paul, and the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.  


Reference : 
​http://www.welfareissue.com
https://walkerart.org/collections/artists/joseph-beuys