SEEDING PRACTICE –
CARE FOR PUBLIC GREEN
biodiversity at oskar kokoschka platz

Questions of arrangement and the coordination of the extensive care of the meadow at the Oskar Kokoschka are under negotiation – we dedicate ourselves to the area and its diverse inhabitants. We learn from and with the meadow together with other species: Exploring and observing together the biodiversity of the meadow at Oskar Kokoschka Square, identifying and naming species and critters, introducing regional seeds to the meadow (corn poppy, wood sage…) and complementary plantings of species such as wild cardoon and dyer’s chamomile.

MEADOW PIECE AT OSKAR KOKOSCHKA PLATZ

A meager meadow piece with adjacent woody structures and old trees at Oskar-Kokoschka-Platz, opposite the entrance to the University of Applied Arts, is the habitat of native animal and plant species: pear trees, cherry plums, ivy, yarrow, sickle carrot, Feldmann’s litter, white heather snails, mallards, blackbirds, wild bees, beetles, dragonflies, grasshoppers and ants inhabit this place. A fence encloses the green space, protecting the life forms from excessive trespassing. The ecologically significant remaining area is the starting point of a reflection on the design of public spaces in the city, taking into account the interests of non-human life forms and acting in the spirit of this consideration.
The loss of biodiversity, mass extinctions and climate change are raising a new awareness of the importance of urban nature and call for new approaches to action in the midst of major crises in the immediate living environment. The project green space at Oskar-Kokoschka-Platz is conceived as a post-anthropocentric relational space and, as a real and fictional place, enables collective learning experiences, professional discourse, and a reflected repositioning of human activity in the species structure. (Concept: Isa Klee)

Isa Klee works as endangeredspeciesadvocacy* intersectionally for an intact biodiversity. Klee initiates, activates, and designs biodiverse spaces and spatial processes, thinking of cities as cross-species learning and living spaces. She is a climate protection laureate and founder of the initiative Öko Campus Wien and active in community gardens in Vienna. instagram.com/endangeredspeciesadvocacy/

ARCHIVE SPRING/SUMMER 2023

Seeding Practice & #7
Date Friday March 24, 2023
Location meadow piece at Oskar Kokoschka Platz 2

ARCHIVE FALL/WINTER 2022/23

Starting point are two green spaces of the Angewandte: the meadow outside and the inner courtyard of the main building at Oskar Kokoschka Platz. Guided by Isa Klee, who has developed an activist practice out of a conscious handling of plants, seeds and resources of the city and always in concern for insects and other non-human species, we learn to see urban nature in a new way, to name it in its diversity, to deal with it in a caring way. We try to recognize the habitat requirements of plants and animals and to get closer to the species. The walks lead to other green spaces where mowing has already been suspended, to community gardens, fallow areas, spaces in between: the so-called distance green, tree discs or even just “cracks” between construction sites are observed, planted, cherished. The inventory, along with the changes over the year, will be documented in drawings and language in a sketchbook.

Seeding Practice #6
Date Tuesday 11.1.2023, 15:30-17:00
Meeting point Schottentor / University of Vienna

On the trail of other stories and a livable future in the city, this time we seek out diverse natural spaces around the University of Vienna: Remnant areas with meadows, urban forests and G’stettn. 
We are accompanied by the question of co-creation and the attitude towards other species living here, such as yarrow, two-colored bat or Danube sand bee. Campus-based stories of interspecies encounters, bat rescues, political processes, institutional learning, and new habitat conservation alliances form narratives of biodiverse futures. Collective action makes the campus a place of learning and a multi-layered field of experimentation for institutional change. The walk concludes with a visit to the campus community garden, a biodiverse, participatory site that is a starting and emblematic nucleus of this story(s).

Seeding Practice #4
Date Tuesday 11.10.2022, 15:30-17:00
Meeting point Angewandte OKP