It was a rainy Saturday morning but the Bed-Stuy Meadow event went on as planned. Forty or so volunteers showed up at 11 am and hurled "seed bombs" onto vacant lots and tree stumps in that neighborhood. The idea: to plant wildflowers (sunflowers and black-eyed-Susans) everywhere.

The reaction, according to WNYC, was mixed. Longtime residents and members of Brownstoners of Bedford Stuyvesant, a neighborhood group,  were miffed that organzer Deborah Fisher, an artist who creates site-specific work, didn't reach out to the community in traditional ways. One local resident, who spoke to WNYC, wondered why she didn't speak to the Community Board and get more local residents involved.

Deborah countered that she had more volunteers than she knew what to do with. Many noticed that the volunteers were mostly white and mostly newcomers to the quickly gentrifying neighborhood. 

The blogger who runs Bed-Stuy Blog was a proud sponsor of the event. Last week she shared her thoughts about an article that appeared in the Daily News that highlighted the controversy:

The article really gets interesting when they interview the
president of the Brownstoners of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Ava Barnett. (The
Brownstoners are probably best known for their annual Bed-Stuy House
Tour that takes place in autumn.) Ms. Barnett isn’t very enthusiastic
about the Bed-Stuy Meadow project, and comes off sounding very anti-wildflower.
In fact, the good Ms. Barnett calls the project a “wildflower invasion”
and says that wildflowers will not look good in an urban environment.
She mentions that several blocks in Bed-Stuy have received recognition
in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Greenest Block in Brooklyn contest,
which implies that the neighborhood is looking just dandy and doesn’t
need any additional beautification projects taking place, thank you.

Ms. Barnett is obviously in a South Stuy state of mind and probably
hasn’t ventured north of Lexington Avenue in years to see what her
neighborhood really looks like beyond those Greenest Block in Brooklyn
winners. I thought that the Brownstoners would encourage any type of
beautification project taking place in the neighborhood. Any guess why
a well-intentioned project like this would draw such negativity from
their president?

Is this just an example of "no good deed goes unpunished" or do longtime Bed-Stuy locals have a point? Was this effort to bring wildflowers to the abandoned lots of a neighborhood just another version of cultural imperialism foisted on a community?

Should Deborah Fisher have taken advantage of the local Community Board as a way to insure outreach to those who don't read blogs or get Twitter feeds?

What do you think? And how do you think people would feel in your neighborhood if an artist decided to seed bomb it?

Personally I think it was a cool idea. Not in a do-gooder sort of way but as a 'bring art to the streets' kind of happening. I like the serendipity of it and the attempt, by one woman, to create urban art. I wonder if she plans to do more of this? If so, she may have a thing or two to learn from site-specific superstar, Christo, who has dealt wil local governments for years to make his huge public art projects a reality.

Clearly, Deborah took a more guerilla approach. Next time, maybe, Fisher will engage the community more directly. That way, her process will be more transparent and inclusive in an interesting way. Christo's work is as much about the final product (Running Fence, Valley Curtain, The Gates) as it is about the buracracy, the politics, the public reaction and the many years it takes to complete:

Instead of getting defensive, Fisher should now compile the various reactions to Bed-Stuy Meadow – positive and negative – and seek to understand what it tells us about community and the process of making art. Therin lies the seeds to understanding between groups that often feel at odds in a gentriying community.