Natural Order
034North Point, Hong Kong
Natural Order is an urban garden prototype in the North Point East Ferry Pier for restoring normality in which people are deprived of their attachment to the original nature. By introducing a shared ownership with a local community group, Shoreside Planting Crew, created during the Via North Point festival, they operate and manage the place from absolute human usage to reclaim fully into an oasis above the pier stilts.
Natural Order is presented in a garden gated square, repairing attachment to nature through continuous demonstration and transformation of the installation during the festival and the project’s afterlife.
Occupying five bays of the pier that were vacant at the time due to the pandemic, the empty spaces are altered into a garden for the crew. Members are left with an open question to determine whether to reclaim the planting modules for nature or humans.
Through the half year demonstration at the pier, Natural Order depicts a larger phenomenon of ‘Deprived House’ where living spaces are eradicated with basic needs. Natural Order unveils the vanishing of greenery in one's house, the creation of urban gardens reveals people’s desire to repair their attachment to nature.
Context:
During the time when pandemic hits, Hong Kong Arts Centre (HKAC) rented 5 aisle bay of the North Point East Ferry Pier for hosting community workshops and as a base for a fictitious community group “Shoreside Planting Crew” under the year long social campaign Via North Point. Environment of the East Ferry Pier is quiet compare to the adjacent main pier, overseeing Victoria Harbour from a distance as a glimpse of silence and tranquil in comparison to the rapid city life.
Concept:
The project was commissioned to design and organise the second phase workshops and a garden to be operated and maintained by the Shoreside Planting Crew. Tracing the reasons behind the interests in planting or nature, the potential causes laying underneath such curiosities are the scarcity of space ownership by one to cultivate their interests. The garden is hence designed to empower the members in performing ways to occupy the site through their activities of planting or reclaiming nature.
Process:
Progressing from the first phases of workshops, the second rounds of engagement workshops are planned to stimulate questions and observations towards greeneries and how these natural findings are now perceived as rarities in the city. Community workshops brought members to search for where nature lives within the city through photo documentation, create a neighbourhood map of where the nature resides, discover ways to occupy vacant land and plots with plantations, and the eventual session to participate in the planning of a communal garden.
Production:
Designed to occupy one bay of the five rented aisle area, the whole garden is constructed by modular planters, fences and trolley units. Image and identity of the garden or Shoreside Planting Crew is recognisable by the presence of the garden fences, while the planting units namely ‘Flip-pots’ can be placed on trolleys to disperse across the longitudinal site and configured into adaptable arrangement such as booths for Sunday Market, display cabinets for exhibition and to catch further sunlight when necessary.
Experience:
Natural Order is a communal garden residing in the North Point East Ferry Pier, serving as the base for the Shoreside Planting Crew to perform planting activities for a half year span. Members from the fictitious community group demonstrate their desire to live with and or understand nature, through their collective actions to regulate a space for nature to flourish and survive in a concretely cruel city.
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Client:
Hong Kong Art Centre (HKAC), Urban Renewal Fund (URF)
Occasion:
Via North Point Festival
Typology:
Garden, Installation
Status:
Completion
Location:
North Point East Ferry Pier, Hong Kong
Duration:
2021
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Project Team:
Anthony Ko
Collaborators:
Jeffrey Kwong (Public Engagement)
Grow Something (Planting Consultant)
Storychick (Community Workshops)
Fabrication:
1130 Studio
Construction:
1130 Studio
Photography:
Herman Chan Ho Wang
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