Urban Guerrilla Episode 9: Guerrilla Tricycle Taipei Pilgrimage (Part 1)

Seeking the green possibilities in the heart of the city, guerrilla gardening is right beside you -- Gorilla Green Guerrilla, the guerrilla cart brigade action log (Part 1)

Text/ Haichen 

Walking the streets of the city, you always notice the hanging flower pots on the walls have withered, the planters on the sidewalk hold nothing but sand and pitiful, scrawny plants, and there are wall after wall of endless, prison-like concrete. So people want to fill these hollows with "something a bit more natural," and all kinds of man-made plantings appear. But what exactly is the relationship between the city and nature?

Long ago, in the era when people experienced the city on foot, the city was a place for socializing, meeting, exchanging information and goods, and mixing all uses together - slow, yet rich and diverse. Now, fast transportation dominates urban design, a uniform way of thinking has invaded the ordering of space, and even flower beds full of greenery are stacked up from chemical fertilizer and everyone's tax money, replaced three to six times a year. The "natural elements" in the city have become lifeless commodities.

This time, the Gorilla tricycle pilgrimage begins right under our feet, exploring the city's small corners in the most primitive way, using the materials already on site and making the smallest changes, hoping to bring a different kind of feeling.

For a tricycle pilgrimage, the very first task is to have a tricycle you can actually ride. We wouldn't have known without looking into it: an ordinary, unremarkable grandma's tricycle costs at least several thousand even secondhand! So we decided to build one ourselves. A bicycle, paired with a cargo platform made from an outdoor lounge chair plus two wheels, became the one-of-a-kind "Gorilla brand" tricycle in the world.

In this action, apart from buying plant materials and soil and preparing probiotic liquid, everything else - including water sources, mulch for the thick-soil planting method, and whether to turn left or right - was flexible. We wanted to follow our hearts, to discover and experience this city's different faces and all its potential.

 
(Left photo: The Gorilla brand tricycle carries our guerrilla tools: Thai basil, taro, corn, Ceylon spinach, papaya saplings, orange tree saplings, simple gardening tools, probiotics, a small water bucket, potting soil, and decorative floral cloth. Right photo: The Gorilla brand tricycle and two bicycles set off together, organically.)

In the early hours of a weekend, before dawn had broken, four gorillas arrived at the meeting point, ready to set off, nervous inside. We first charged straight ahead along Roosevelt Road. Well, a main artery is really different: most of the planting troughs were full of ornamental plants, with no place for any edible crop to take root, and we did not want to use a replace-and-take-over approach.

So we kept riding and riding, and finally decided to make a big left turn, arriving in the alleys and lanes that hold the most vitality in the city. Alley life is the core of Taipei life. To know the city, you start from the alleys. This is the place closest to daily life, and also the place closest to change.

[1 The Possibilities of a Park]

After turning a corner, there was a quiet neighborhood residence, and a tidy neighborhood park space sat right in the middle of the road. This is the most common kind of green space in daily life. Around it, low-growing pinto peanut plants lived inside iron railings meant to keep dogs out. To keep dogs out, the chance for people to get close to the land was taken away too. Nature in the city became a "high-class" zone that can only be admired from afar, not touched.

Just think, "How much must we sacrifice in exchange for so-called quality?" To keep skateboarders out, people make the areas beside flower beds prickly; to keep homeless people from sleeping on park benches, they make the benches segmented, or even charge for them. (See the overseas example http://vimeo.com/1665301)

This park was no exception. To keep dogs from relieving themselves, they simply fenced off the lawn and banned entry, as if that were the only way. But do citizens have any other choices? So we stopped the tricycle and strode over the iron railing - not to relieve ourselves, but to plant corn! We hope people will not let this iron railing cut off their urge to get in touch with greenery.

In this long, strip-shaped, sunlit, windless flat area, we planted two rows of fast-growing corn. At first people would not notice, but once the corn grew a bit, this simple park could have a little more novelty. After planting, we continued looking for the next possibility.

  
(Left photo: The gorillas are planting corn. Right photo: In the alleys, you can discover the ingenuity of the city's green thumbs at any time.)

[2 A Withered Potted Plant Gets New Life]

Riding along, we suddenly spotted a withered potted plant with an International Flora Expo sticker on it. A living plant had just withered away in its pot. Surely she was a beauty in her day! But it does not matter - she can still become the most important nutrient for the next life.

We took down the potted plant and used the thick-soil planting method to plant Thai basil, and left a "Please water me" gorilla card, hoping the nearby residents would help water it, and also snip and use it. Through this kind of mutual-aid relationship, the diverse nature in the city is sustained, and only this kind of relationship is organic, sustainable, economical, and efficient.

[3 An Empty Pot Also Holds New Life]

The third guerrilla spot was an empty pot beside a drainage ditch. The plant had already turned into soil, waiting for new life to move in. Here we also planted corn. Maybe this was not the most suitable place for them, but we hoped the owner would notice and take it home.

Many people in the city have the desire to grow plants, but factors like space, time, money, and skill hold many of them back. Yet this is also what this tricycle pilgrimage wanted to try: using simple materials and things around us to tell everyone that growing plants is actually very simple.

 
(Left photo: Watering the new little life. Right photo: In the end we left the gorilla's card.)

Time flew by, and it was seven in the morning, time to eat breakfast! We stopped at a breakfast shop. The group went in and started chatting with the owner. The owner said he had always wanted to grow plants, and when he learned we were planting things nearby, he was very interested. We also hoped they could help keep an eye on the plants we had planted around there. In the end, we gave the owner a taro seedling, hoping it would grow quickly, so that in the future everyone could have taro for breakfast.

After breakfast, the gorilla members continued the tricycle pilgrimage action. (To be continued in Part 2)

 
(Left photo: The cart brigade pauses in front of the breakfast shop. Right photo: The modified tricycle kept drawing curious looks from passersby.)

Gorilla x Urban Guerrilla Cart Brigade ➚ Activity Record Video http://youtu.be/CXKyN9RAFhs