First Node: x̱aw̓s shew̓áy̓ New Growth《新生林》at Semi-Public 半公開

x̱aw̓s shew̓áy̓ New Growth《新生林》nurtures ecological processes and community members alike. Designed by T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss, a Skwxwú7mesh/Sto:Lo/Hawaiian/Swiss artist, ethnobotanist, and educator, this site was designed and redressed from a vacant lot into a public garden with flora indigenous to this territory.

Semi-Public 半公開 is a cultural space operated by 221A, located in Chinatown and adjacent to historic Hogan’s Alley, where the Georgia Street Viaduct now stands, the garden site is a place where Indigenous peoples, Chinese-Canadians, and the African diasporic community have all experienced cultural, class, and economic struggle. Our governments are beginning to acknowledge the shameful strategies used to systematically inflict injustice on generations of racialized communities.

While this mesh begins as a stolon (a community mesh network) exists primarily online, we recognize that through the online we also connect to the land and the neighbourhoods across it. The project acknowledges that the area called Vancouver is within the unceded Indigenous territories belonging to the Musqueam, Skxwú7mesh-ulh Úxwumixw (Squamish) and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. We recognize that the colony of British Columbia was created through organized dispossession and colonial violence.

Second Node: coFood Vancouver Garden at 265 East 4th Avenue

coFood Vancouver is a collective of neighbours and projects doing good work in our food communities. We’re working to help people in the food systems of BC’s South Coast to connect with each other.