Utopia

Utopias are often just premature truths.

— ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE, « Histoire des Girondins », Œuvres Completes

Part I: Community

I have long been drawn to utopic tales; during my MA studies I explored the idea of mutability in three Franco-Ontarian literary works. The object of study in one of the theatrical texts —Testament du couturier (2003) by Michel Ouellette — was the dystopian setting. Reading the Tischlein, Deck Dich für Alle! Eine Betrachtung pamphlet, I recognized the characteristics of a utopian society, where the author’s imagined agrarian community seeks to improve the conditions of both men and women based on the equitable distribution of labour.

It can be said that there are links between modern agriculture movements (permaculture, agroecology, regenerative agriculture, sustainable urban agriculture, circular economy, to name a few) and the agrarian utopia described by Joseph Angerbauer in 1908.

Changing food systems

The global pandemic revealed the precarity of our food systems and the need to reinvest in short food supply chains. A growing desire from consumers to better know the provenance of their food and to ensure the quality of their produce has changed food habits. People are increasingly buying their produce from local farmers and even growing their own food on balconies, in back yards, on roofs and in community and collective gardens. The rise in popularity of regenerative agriculture, organic farming, polyculture and food sovereignty movements as seen aboundantly in DIY culture online can be attributed to a lack of trust in high-input intensive methods and the practice of monoculture in industrial agriculture. Improvements in technology and infrastructure (plant lights, greenhouses) has encouraged the implementation of urban agriculture in many cities, addressing not only food security and poverty alleviation, but also increasing social capital and improving biodiversity. Local, circular and social economies have the power to disrupt conventional agriculture and the way we produce food and nourish our communities.

Agrarian community

This Socialist Labour pamphlet was written in 1908 during the Progressive Era (1890s-1920s) a period in the United States that witnessed a wave of social and political reform movements. In 1906, Upton Sinclair published his muck-raking novel The Jungle and that same year the Pure Food and Drug Act was created federally to guarantee the safety of food systems among others aims.

Joseph Angerbauer was listed as a labourer in census records and city directories in Plainfield, New Jersey. What compelled him to publish this work let alone write it? Selbstverlage Press was situated in West Norwood, less than an hour’s drive away from his residence. Of interest is the fact that West Norwood is in close proximity to Englewood, which was the site of the Helicon Home colony, an experimental socialist commune established by Upton Sinclair and others in 1906.

In the article A utopia during the progressive era: the helicon home colony 1906-1907 (American Studies, Vol 25, No. 2: Fall 1984), Lawrence Kaplan details an insightful portrayal of the Progressive era intellectuals and their utopic ideals on child care, homemaking and women's rights of that time. Was Joseph in any way aware of this commune? Was he associated with any socialist parties in New Jersey?

In terms of historical research, my plan is to visit the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York City as well as Plainfield, New Jersey, where Joseph Angerbauer once owned a farm.

Utopia

Designed plant communities require an ecological understanding of plants, but even more, they need designers with an eye for combinations, a flare for color, and an intuitive sense of natural harmony. They need gardeners who can find a place to plant, even among skyscrapers and row houses. They need plant lovers who understand that we don't need to go to a national park to have a spiritual experience of nature; we can have such experiences in our backyards, parks and rooftops.

— THOMAS RAINER & CLAUDIA WEST, Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes, 2015

Part II: Plant Communities

I put the project on a shelf for many years because of the pandemic and the lack of time needed to commit myself to the project. It was while I pursued online studies in horticulture and landscape design that I came to realize that these ecological studies could serve as a new lens with which to pore over the pamphlet. From urban agriculture and food sovereignty movements to biodynamic farming and naturalistic planting movements in landscape architecture, it was clear that this would be a multi-layered project about an idealized agrarian community.

Not only could I analyze the text using a historical lens of a particular time in the United States, I could equally use a creative lens to try and visualize this imagined space. Additionally as a horticulturist, I could attempt to design the plant communities in the idealized agrarian community detailed in Tischlein, Deck Dich für Alle! Eine Betrachtung.

I have long been interested in map-making as an artist, notably with my Tongue Rug project. Angerbauer’s text also held promise of a two-dimensional form, particularly in the layout of community space. Seeing a hand-drawn map of an intentional rural community by Professor Herbert Girardet in Graham’s Burnett’s Permaculture (2012) triggered a desire for me to attempt to visualize the spaces described in the pamphlet, to make concrete this ideal division of labour.

The ideal designed [plant] community

In terms of my research in horticultural and landscape design, I was particularily inspired by Rainer and West's Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes (2015). There is an aspect of utopia in the ideal designed plant community, the ideal landscape archetype, the ideal creative design. Following this vein, I will study early ecological movements and the works of thought leaders of plant habitat-focused systems. To name a few:

• German Mixed Perennial Plantings (Staudenmischpflanzung)
• The Native Garden at the New York Botanical Garden designed by the Landscape architecture firm Oehme, van Sweden and Associates who cite the influence of Karl Foerster (1874-1970), a German gardener and writer.
• The work of Richard Hansen (1912-2001): Sichtungsgarten Weihenstephan, a viewing garden and Schau und Sichtungsgarten Hermannshof a test and trial garden in Germany.

I hope that what I glean from these various research streams and garden visits will inform the two- and perhaps three-dimensional works of The Wishing Table.

— J. A. Lapalme