Right Research
| , ,Section 2: Art and/in the anthropocene
9. Solidarity Seeds : Situated Knowledges in Bishan Village, Wang Chau Village and Aarey Forest
Texte intégral
- 1 Donna J. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991 (...)
Situated knowledges require that the object of knowledge be pictured as an actor and agent, not a screen or a ground or a resource, never finally as slave to the master that closes off the dialectic in his unique agency and authorship of ‘objective’ knowledge […] Actors come in many and wonderful forms. Accounts of a ‘real’ world do not, then, depend on a logic of ‘discovery’, but on a power-charged social relation of ‘conversation’.
— Donna Haraway1
Between 2015 and 2018, artist-researcher Michael Leung visited three sites—in China, Hong Kong and India—each facing destruction as the result of land development. Leung worked with local farmers and activists on creative projects, with the goal of increasing the visibility of these local land struggles as well as strengthening transnational solidarity. In this chapter, Michael Leung revisits the ‘three seed projects’, as documented in artefacts and photographs, in order to explore what it means to use situated knowledge to enrich existing narratives. He posits a rhizomatic approach to research-creation as embedded within social practice, in which the making of objects—seed packets, critical maps, fictional stories, photographs, zines and other actors—is a generative act, the objects themselves becoming ‘seeds’ that nurture, grow and exchange local knowledge.
Introduction
1In 2015, I visited Bishan Village in Anhui (China) to learn from a rural commune and its members. During my visit, artist-researcher Elaine W. Ho, anthropologist and commune member Zhao Kunfang and I started a project that involved sharing organic seed varieties with farmers in the village. At the time, this gesture and its accompanying map was intended to be a small but fruitful interaction. However, in February 2016 the map became a politically-sensitive document showing a history that the Chinese government decided to erase.
2Two additional seed projects followed: one in 2017 in Hong Kong’s Wang Chau Village, a community that had been designated for redevelopment and eviction; and the other in 2018 in Mumbai’s Aarey forest, which is in the process of being cut down to build the city’s third metro line.
3In this text I revisit the three seed projects, as documented in artefacts and photographs, in order to explore the following questions: What happened individually and collectively during each seed project? How can a theoretical base inform a research-creation methodology? What are ‘Solidarity Seeds’ and what role do they play as part of the commons and on a transnational level?
4These three case studies highlight the land struggles of local farmers and activists against neoliberal development plans that put profit over people as well as underscore the need to build towards a transnational solidarity. In reflecting on these seed projects several years later, I demonstrate how situated knowledges can enrich the existing narratives through the creation of artefacts such as: seed packets, critical maps, fictional stories, photographs, zines and other actors. The result is a rhizomatic approach to research-creation as embedded within a social practice that is generative and part of the commons (free and accessible to all).

Fig. 2 Village entrance 20 minutes before an eviction, Ma Shi Po Village, Hong Kong, May 2016. Photograph by Wen.
- 2 Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitali (...)
5Anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing teaches us that, ‘ […] only an appreciation of current precarity as an earthwide condition allows us to notice this—the situation of our world’.2 The following chapter likewise situates ‘seeds’ in Bishan Village, Wang Chau Village and Aarey Forest as an actor and agent that shares stories and farming knowledge and increases the visibility of the local land struggles led by these three different communities.
Methodology

Fig. 3 Mango King pointing at the papaya trees that are fruiting, Hong Kong, July 2014. Photograph by Michael Leung.
- 3 Kyohei Sakaguchi, Build Your Own Independent Nation (Tokyo: Doyosha, 2016), p. 17.
A revolution isn’t the act of physically ‘changing’ something. But rather, to come upon a realization through a shift in one’s own perception, that a revolution has already been happening. This is a type of methodology; not so much about ‘changing’, but about ‘expanding’. It is the skill of realizing that there are countless numbers of ways to ‘live’.
— 坂口 恭平 Kyohei Sakaguchi3
6I have a background as an industrial designer, designing mobile devices for a global brand for three years in London, which is also my place of birth and where I lived for twenty-six years. Learning from global design consultancies, I applied my design research methodology and completed a Masters of Design programme in Hong Kong in 2010. After graduating I focused on urban farming, and with friends farmed on four terrace/rooftops using rich organic topsoil collected from agricultural land that was acquired by property developers, for speculation.
- 4 Alice Ko, et al., Wooferten’s Art/Activist in Residence 2013–2015, 活化廳藝術行動者 駐場計劃 2013–2015, ed. by (...)
- 5 ‘So Boring’, Facebook, www.facebook.com/wearesoboring.
- 6 ‘Community farming project, Mango King’, Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/pg/communityfarmingproj (...)
7My social practice was catalysed by an Art/Activist in Residence programme at a community art space called Woofer Ten (活化廳) in 2013.4 I was invited by the art space to work on a project in the neighbourhood of Yau Ma Tei for three months, and do a public sharing to conclude the residency. Knowing that I was passionate about guerrilla gardening, friends from a nearby vegetarian cooperative cafe called So Boring informed me that there was a street dweller growing food in public space in-between two busy highways.5 This was where I met a man who called himself ‘Mango King’. A short residency programme bloomed into a three-year collaboration, where Mango King and I planted over thirty edible plants and fruit trees together and composted local food waste collected from a community space nearby called Kai Fong Pai Dong (街坊排檔, English for ‘neighbourhood market stall’).6
- 7 ‘Yau Ma Tei Gardener’, www.ymtgardener.wordpress.com.
8Sharing our (HK Farm group) whole seed box with Mango King gave me the opportunity to learn from his radical permaculture practice—techniques such as his ‘Beaver Water Collection’ that blocks/ releases government-installed stormwater drains and his ‘Volcano Planting’ method that keeps the roots of papaya trees well-hydrated. Reflecting now on this period between 2013 to 2016 (before a rigorous research methodology was in place), it seems that action research, semistructured interviews, spreadsheet diaries, photographs, object analysis, collaborative work with other communities such as So Boring and Yau Ma Tei Gardener,7 knowledge co-production and mutual aid evolved into a mixed methodology that resembles the ‘patchwork ethnography’ mentioned in Tsing’s book Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection:
- 8 Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, preface to Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection (Princeton: Princet (...)
The interviews also confirmed the practical usefulness of the kind of patchwork ethnographic fieldwork I had been doing on these issues [deforestation in the Meratus Mountains of South Kalimantan, Indonesia]. On the one hand, I was unwilling to give up the ethnographic method, with its focus on the ethnographer’s surprises rather than on a pre-formulated research plan. On the other hand, it is impossible to gain a full ethnographic appreciation of every social group that forms a connection in a global chain.8
- 9 W. Lawrence Neuman, Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (Boston: Pears (...)
- 10 Michael Leung, Solidarity Street (Hong Kong: Black Book Press, 2017).
9My urban beekeeping and farming experience naturally encourages a hands-on and immersive approach. My fluency in Cantonese (spoken in Hong Kong) and Chinese illiteracy moreover puts great importance on the encounter and being present, in situations such as hiking mountains early in the morning to collect wild beehives and organizing with farming communities. W. Lawrence Neuman defines participatory action research as, ‘a subtype of action research, emphasizes democratizing the knowledge-creation process, revealing injustices, highlighting social inequality and conflict, and engaging in collective action to improve conditions’.9 In the past few years, I have learnt that such an approach to research can be objective, transformative and emancipatory. At that point, boundaries between the individual and collective, local and transnational, become blurred, giving form to new artefacts and evolving a local citizen/activist humanities that may have never existed before.10
- 11 Linda Candy and Ernest Edmonds, ‘Practice-based research in the creative arts: Foundations and futu (...)
10In their discussion of practice-based research, Linda Candy and Ernest Edmonds describe the methodology as ‘an original investigation undertaken in order to gain new knowledge, partly by means of practice and the outcomes of that practice’.11 Both practice-based research and citizen/activist humanities informed my approach to the three seeds projects and inspired me to think about the publicness of research practices and about methods of disseminating artefacts in new ways. In particular, how might we explore other means, apart from the world wide web, of sharing knowledge and making it more freely and easily accessible?
First Seed: Bishan Village
- 12 Mai Corlin, ‘Trojan horses in the Chinese countryside: Ou Ning and the Bishan Commune in dialogue a (...)
The Bishan Project was part of a larger move towards the Chinese countryside, a move that was initiated through New Rural Reconstruction Projects during the course of the 1990s, and that has intensified since the mid-2000s with the involvement of urban artists. These urban artists created their own versions of the rural reconstruction project, in which rural art festivals have been a predominant model. The vantage point for the projects are, however, often small-scale units such as a commune, a farm or a youth house, and they focus on exchanges, engagement and conversations.
— Mai Corlin12
- 13 Doxa, ‘Day 1 / After Occupy: From Cities to Rural / Ou Ning / Map Office’, Vimeo (February 12, 2012 (...)
- 14 Spring Workshop, HK Farm (2015), www.springworkshop.org/?lang=en#/hong-kong-farm.
11I first met curator and writer Ou Ning (欧宁) in an elevator after his sharing of the rural utopian Bishan Commune Project (founded 2011) as part of After Occupy: Art, Gentrification and Civil War, a two-day workshop on the art and culture industry and gentrification at Asia Art Archive in January 2014, Hong Kong.13 He kindly invited me to visit Bishan Village in Anhui, a province in east China. During an art and farming residency at Spring Workshop, a non-profit art space in Hong Kong, artist-researcher Elaine W. Ho and I visited Bishan Village (referred from here as Bishan) for ten days in May 2015.14
- 15 The School of Tillers (www.facebook.com/schooloftillers) is named after the ‘anarchist movement of (...)
12I arrived in the afternoon to see an opening ceremony with firecrackers taking place outside the School of Tillers (理農館)—an open space in a skywell garden, a shop selling some villagers produce, a small cafe area, an event/exhibition space and a library on first floor—all frequented by villagers and visitors.15 That night I met all of the commune members at dinner and slept nearby in Huizhou-style architecture village house with the door unlocked.
- 16 I would like to share my gratitude to Zhao Kunfang in supporting this text. Her ethnography and clo (...)
13Over the next few days, I learnt about the commune and saw how they established relationships with the local authorities and elderly farming community—who have small gardens sustaining their families, to larger plots growing rapeseed and mulberry trees. Anthropologist and commune member Zhao Kunfang was kind enough to introduce us to the villagers that she had met since moving to Bishan in January 2015.16 They welcomed us into their houses for tea and showed us their gardens and produce, such as longevity spinach (觀音菜) and Laba Tofu (腊八豆腐)—named after Laba, a traditional Chinese holiday celebrated on the eighth day (eight, 八) of the La month (臘月 the twelfth month of the Chinese calendar).
- 17 Sun Yunfan and Leah Thompson (dir.), ‘Down to the countryside’, ChinaFile (December 15, 2014), www. (...)
14Following several garden visits, Elaine, Kunfang and I decided to share some organic seed varieties with the farmer villagers in a creative way that values the soil, seed saving and seed sharing, and shifts away from the genetically modified seeds that were easily accessible to the villagers). I had brought the following five seed varieties from Hong Kong: Magnum Habanero Hot Pepper, Early Jalapeño Hot Pepper, Snowy Eggplant, Yellow Pear Cherry Tomato and Rainbow Blend Chard. We discussed invasive plants and introducing migrant seeds into Bishan but chose to prioritize and focus on how the seeds and future produce/recipes could be shared together, contributing to a community resilience, amidst new developments happening inside the village and in nearby villages rapidly shifting towards tourism.17

Fig. 6 Jalapeño chilli pepper seed packet, Bishan Village, China, May 2015.
Illustration by Sun Yunfan. 21 x 21 cm. English translation: ‘Very Spicy
Friend. Organic seeds. Save seeds and share with other villagers. Sow and harvest information (number of days)’.

Fig. 7 Making seed packets with commune members, School of Tillers, Bishan Village, May 2015. Photograph by Michael Leung.
- 18 Naveen Mahantesh, Ankit Bhargava and Srajana Kaikini, ‘Negotiating routes: Ecologies of the byways (...)
15In the School of Tillers library, we created hand-painted seed packets that resembled Chinese couplets (red paper with calligraphy usually placed at door entrances bearing good wishes such as 出入平安 meaning ‘Peace Wherever You Go’). We were inspired by an in-situ mapping project by Ecologies of the Excess where rural village houses in Amaravathi village (426 kilometres from Bangalore, India) stamped the outside of their houses indicating if: (1) They raised cows and depend on them for milk and/or dairy products (2) They did not raise cows (3) They do not raise cows and depend on packaged dairy products (4) They do not raise cows and depend on neighbours’ cows for milk and/or dairy products.18 For our seed project we imagined that the seed packets would be stuck outside the villagers’ houses, with their consent, and used to communicate to other villagers that they have unique organic seed varieties and are happy to share seeds.

Fig. 8 Kunfang sharing seeds with Grandma Huihua at her home, Bishan Village, May 2015. Photograph by Michael Leung.
- 19 For a video of Mrs. Ling receiving seed packets, that Michael recorded after his first visit to Bis (...)
16We visited Grandma Huihua, Mrs. Ling19, Wang Yuanqing, Wang Huilan and Li Chun’s village houses and their gardens/small farms. We took notes and photographs of what was being grown seasonally at the time. We shared our seed project and distributed the seed packets to the villagers. They were intrigued about the fictional names that we gave the seeds such as 葫芦娃番茄 (English for ‘Baby Gourd Tomato’, originally called Yellow Pear Cherry Tomato) and 好辣朋友 (English for ‘Very Spicy Friend’ which phonetically sounds like ‘jalapeño’ in Putonghua, originally called Early Jalapeño Hot Pepper).
- 20 Zhao Kunfang, ‘Beyond Bishan’, in The HK FARMers’ Almanac 2014–2015 (Hong Kong: Spring Workshop, 20 (...)
- 21 Leila McNeill, ‘The women who transformed how we teach geography’, Smithsonian.com (January 18, 201 (...)
17The next day Elaine and I started drawing the village map in the Bishan Bookstore and later shared it with Kunfang in the School of Tillers, where we also had additional support from YanZi, a villager working at the School of Tillers. The map developed quickly and included landmark locations such as the bust of Wang Dazhi (汪达之), a Chinese educator that Ou Ning admires, and a nine-square metre former frog catcher’s hut that became an independent artspace called WOW Space.20 Geographer and activist Zonia Baber taught her students to create their own approach to cartography, and that their maps should correspond to ‘real places and real people’.21
- 22 Elaine W. Ho, Zhao Kunfan and Michael Leung, ‘Beyond Bishan map’, Bishan Project (2015), www.tinyur (...)
- 23 The HK FARMers’ Almanac 2014–2015 (Hong Kong: Spring Workshop, 2015), www.springworkshop.org/?lang= (...)
18The double-sided A2-sized map that followed several months later, now serves a document that captures the activities of Bishan and its villagers in May 2015.22 On the front is a map of Bishan and information about the five villagers who kindly accepted to join our seed project, and on the back are illustrations of the villagers’ seasonal produce grown at the time of our visit. We printed 200 maps in Hong Kong and distributed them in Bishan and as part of The HK FARMers’ Almanac 2014–2015 (edition of 100), which concluded our art and farming residency at Spring Workshop.23

Fig. 9 Beyond Bishan map front, November 2015. 42 x 59.4 cm. Created by Elaine W. Ho, Zhao Kunfang and Michael Leung.

Fig. 10 Beyond Bishan map back, November 2015. 42 x 59.4 cm. Created by Elaine W. Ho, Zhao Kunfang and Michael Leung. Additional illustrations by Natalie Lo Lai Lai.
- 24 Wen, ‘North East new territories’, Tumblr, www.dungbak.tumblr.com.
- 25 Sarah E. Truman, ‘Becoming more than it never (actually) was: Expressive writing as research-creati (...)
- 26 Zhao, Ho and Leung (2015).
19During my ten days in Bishan, I wrote two short fictional stories, a practice that I started in July 2014. The first story is called Fang Fang Shang Dian ( 芳芳商店 and translated in Chinese) and was inspired by an abandoned shop in the village that has the same name. It features film photographs by Wen, a Hong Kong commercial photographer who has been documenting land struggles in Hong Kong.24 The second story is called Upstairs (untranslated) and was written on my last evening in Bishan. Both stories develop a narrative in relation to the patchwork ethnography from the previous days. The stories take place in some of the aforementioned places such as the School of Tillers cafe and the first-floor library. In an article called ‘Becoming more than it never (actually) was: Expressive writing as research-creation’, researcher Sarah E. Truman writes that, ‘both research-creation’s more-than-representational approach, and creative writing’s differential potential, have the ability to bring new events into being rather than merely report on them’.25 In parallel with the utopian values of the Bishan Project, both stories were shared with all commune members and aimed to support the project by expressing ideas relating to gift economy, food sovereignty and post-capitalism. I had planned to write one more story to complete the trilogy, but then something unexpected happened. In February 2016, the government decided to close the Bishan Project in an abrupt manner, a form of political censorship/oppression. Our map suddenly became a sensitive document, showing a history that the government decided to erase—all places that Ou Ning helped to set up, such as the School of Tillers and the Bishan Commune (home to him and his family and the commune members).26 I returned to Bishan in August 2016 to find the bust of Wang Dazhi removed and villagers reluctant to speak about Ou Ning and his activities (under instruction of the authorities). With the map, I retraced our footprints from one year ago, shared more red seed packets, gifted maps and Fang Fang Shang Dian to villagers and also to Mr. and Mrs. Fang, who own the abandoned small shop. Shortly after my visit they decided to reopen their shop and sell everyday items again (it had been closed since the 1990s). I was delighted to hear this news from Kunfang.

Fig. 11 Mr. and Mrs. Fang reading Fang Fang Shang Dian in their home, Bishan Village, August 2016. Film screen capture by Michael Leung.

Fig. 12 Villager Wang Huilan’s plants from our seed project, Bishan Village, August 2015. Photograph by Zhao Kunfang.
- 27 Bishan Crafts Cooperatives, D & DEPARTMENTHUANGSHAN, www.d-department.com/ext/shop/huangshan.html.
20Since the closure of the Bishan Project, Kunfang revisits Bishan a few times per year and we often speak about the changes that have happened since. She also kindly shares photographs relating to our seed project and even unfortunate mishaps when villagers were unsure of when to harvest. We wrote planting information on the seed packets but the thin red paper weathers badly outdoors. On reflection, we should have printed the sow and harvest times on the map or used thicker red paper. Almost four years have passed since I first visited Bishan and a lot has changed. The old supplies village-cooperative shop, where we first bought the red paper for the seed packets, has been developed into a ‘D & DEPARTMENT HUANGSHAN by Bishan Crafts Cooperatives’ store, and numerous hotels have opened since. All the commune members now live in different parts of China and Ou Ning lives in New York with his family.27 As the villagers continue their rural village life, in what Kunfang now calls ‘Bishan 3.0’, I wonder how they remember those four years of the Bishan Project, what they think about the developments happening in their village now, what dishes they make from their harvests grown from the organic seeds, did they save seeds and share them with others, and where they keep their maps and copies of Fang Fang Shang Dian—and if they ever show them to their children or grandchildren.

Fig. 13 Villager Wang Huilan showing two seed packets posted on her wall, Bishan Village, August 2015. Photograph by Zhao Kunfang.

Fig. 14 Mrs. Ling receiving seed packets in a short film that I made following my first visit to Bishan Village, May 2015. www.vimeo.com/128492051.
21Similar to the time when I first met Mango King, the seed project in Bishan helped to form new relationships and communities, not only between commune members, villagers and Elaine and I, but for those who have yet to visit and will only see Bishan 3.0 and beyond. I look forward to visiting Bishan, meeting the villagers again and writing the third story, perhaps collaboratively—opening another chapter of the Bishan Project.
Second Seed: Wang Chau Village

Fig. 15 Wang Chau Village, Hong Kong, December 2017. Photograph by the Wang Chau Green Belt Concern Group.
- 28 The Invisible Committee, Now (Cambridge: Semiotext (e), 2017), p. 45.
Realizing the promise of communism contained in the world’s fragmentation demands a gesture, a gesture to be performed over and over again, a gesture that is life itself: that of creating pathways between the fragments, of placing them in contact, of organizing their encounter, of opening up the roads that lead from one friendly piece of the world to another without passing through hostile territory, that of establishing the good art of distances between worlds.
— The Invisible Committee28
22In October 2015, the Hong Kong government proposed the displacement of 500 villagers and the destruction of a greenbelt area into 17,000 social housing units (later reduced to 4,000 units) in Wang Chau Village, located in northwest Hong Kong. The three villages planned for development are Wing Ning Village, Fung Chi Village and Yeung Uk San Village (referred from here on as Wang Chau) and have been resisting a top-down government development plan for over three years, employing many tactics from petitioning to camping outside the Legislative Council. My first encounter with the Wang Chau villagers was in a seventy-eight-storey office building in Wanchai, a busy commercial district on Hong Kong Island. I was invited by a friend from another land struggle in the northeast New Territories, and she kindly introduced me to the villagers in the cramped corridor filled with journalists and security guards.
- 29 ‘Wang Chau green belt concern group 橫洲綠化帶發展關注組’, Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/wangchaugreen.
23The second seed project happened in August 2017 in Hong Kong, and involved the distribution of jackfruit tree seedlings following the inaugural 2017 Wang Chau Jackfruit Festival. The festival was collectively organized by villagers, the Wang Chau Green Belt Concern Group and people who have come to support the villagers’ struggle such as myself.29 The event, which included jackfruit tasting, village tours, painting a giant jackfruit, a music show and a traditional villager feast, differed from the gatherings and protests organized previously, and attracted new visitors to the village from all over Hong Kong.
- 30 Michael Leung, ‘Seeds of Awareness’, XXI Architecture and Design Magazine (March 28, 2018), www.xxi (...)
24The jackfruit seeds collected from the jackfruit festival were planted into donated pots at Kai Fong Pai Dong two weeks later. Wang Chau Green Belt Concern Group member Amy Wu also brought several seedlings she had grown at home to the market stall. Together we planted the seeds with rescued soil as curious neighbours walked by and asked us what we were doing. Shortly after, architect and researcher Yelta Köm and designer Elif Çak Köm visited to conduct an interview as part of their research into Commoning Practices and ‘collective groups and their relations with common space, re-thinking the concept of commons and design within communities’.30

Fig. 17 Planting jackfruit seeds at Kai Fong Pai Dong, Hong Kong, August 2017. Photograph by Amy Wu.
- 31 ‘Wang Chau Jackfruit Adoption Project poster’, Facebook, www.facebook.com/wangchaugreen/photos/a.17 (...)
25The 52+ seedlings that were planted developed into the Wang Chau Jackfruit Adoption Project, and they were shared on the concern group’s Facebook page and through individual networks.31 A spreadsheet was created to organize the distribution of the seedlings, and adoptees were invited to join a Whatsapp group to share their seedlings’ progress, ask for growing advice and for the concern group to update people on any political developments related to the village. After a year and half the Whatsapp group, composed of twenty-five people, is active and was even used by a villager to freely share her koi fish, in preparation for a village eviction. I cannot imagine how many other separate groups, both digital and physical, have emerged from the villagers’ three-year-plus struggle. How might these groups be activated in unconventional and creative ways? On reflection Elaine, Kunfang and I could have created a WeChat group to support the Bishan seed project, with consent, adding the five villagers and perhaps their family members if they do not have access to smartphones.

Fig. 18 Selected photographs from the Wang Chau Jackfruit Adoption Project Whatsapp group. Locations from top left to bottom right: Tung Chung*, Sheung Wan*, Foshan (China), Lau Shui Heung* (*Hong Kong), 2019.
26Revisiting Yelta and Elif’s interview, entitled ‘Seeds of Awareness’, reminds me of how the seed is a tool—something tangible, living and full of potential. Within land struggles such as Wang Chau Village, if we perceive everything in-situ as a tool/actor to be re-imagined, what creative opportunities could arise to build knowledge and solidarity as part of the existing movement?
27Since December 2018, villagers, the Wang Chau Green Belt Concern Group and people who have come to support the villagers’ struggle have started a project relating to the Chinese medicinal herbs in the village. A public tour group and an arts university student group have visited villagers’ gardens in the past few months, the latter illustrated many herbs. Miss Cheng, a Wang Chau villager, has created a detailed document of all forty-four herbs with photographs taken by herself. Other members of the public have joined the project hoping to do research relating to villagers and their herbs and how they are used. As we are working on this zine/book/poster together, we hope that it can be shared with the public before the government-proposed village eviction this year.

Fig. 19 Michael and Amy at Kai Fong Pai Dong, Hong Kong, August 2017. Photograph by Yelta Köm and Elif Çak Köm.
Third Seed: Aarey Forest
- 32 Silvia Federici, Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons (Oakland: PM Pre (...)
This is the meaning and the strength of the many struggles that people are waging across the planet to oppose the expansion of capitalist relations, defend the existing commons, and rebuild the fabric of countries destroyed by years of neoliberal assault on the most basic means of our reproduction.
— Silvia Federici32

Fig. 20 Mango Station on the cross junction of Dinkarrao Dessai Road and Konkan Vikas Mahamandal Road, Aarey forest, May 2018. Photograph by Michael Leung.
- 33 ‘Grow Heathrow—transition Heathrow’, Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/transitionheathrow.
- 34 Martin Krenn, ‘Choi Yuen Village scheduled for demolition’ (2009), www.martinkrenn.net/choi_yuen_vi (...)
- 35 Pagans We Are, ‘Substantial victory for Indigenous villages opposing 2nd airport on Jeju Island, So (...)
- 36 Rose Bridger, ‘Taiwan: residents resist forced eviction for ‘Aerotropolis’ megaproject’, Ecologist: (...)
- 37 Comitato NO TAV—Torino, www.notavtorino.org/documenti/inglese/indice.htm.
28In recent years, infrastructure projects such as Heathrow’s Third Runway (London),33 the Guangzhou–Shenzhen–Hong Kong Express Rail Link (Hong Kong)34 and Jeju Island’s second airport (South Korea) have met fierce opposition from environmentalists, villagers and land protectors.35 Capitalist expansion continues and local struggles such as the Taoyuan Aerotropolis (Taoyuan City)36 and the Turin–Lyon high-speed railway movements37 may seem unstoppable.
- 38 Art Together, [en] counters public art project (2018), www.arttogether.org/dailyration.html.
- 39 Neuman (2011), p. 424.
29In May 2018, a fortuitous change in an artist exchange project, organized by Art Together (Hong Kong) and ArtOxygen (Mumbai), led myself and three other Hong Kong artists to stay in Aarey forest in north Mumbai (India) for six days.38 Neuman wrote in his aforementioned book that, ‘A thick description of a 3-minute event may take several pages. It captures exactly what has occurred and places the drama of events in a larger context. It permits multiple interpretations or perspectives and gives a broader social-cultural context, allowing the reader to infer deeper cultural meanings’.39 With this in mind and the relatively recent trip to Mumbai, I would like to share an autoethnographic text entitled Solidarity with Aarey, that was written in May 2018—outdoors in the forest, inside a mosquito net surrounding my mat and sleeping bag.
Solidarity with Aarey [dated 18th May 2018, Aarey forest]

Fig. 21 Vanita, a Warli tribal, teaching a child how to open an Indian Almond, Aarey forest, May 2018. Photograph by Michael Leung.
- 40 Donna J. Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (Durham and London: Duke (...)
Maybe, but only maybe, and only with intense commitment and collaborative work and play with other terrans, flourishing for rich multispecies assemblages that include people will be possible. I am calling all this the Chthulucene—past, present, and to come.
– Donna Haraway40

Fig. 22 Aarey forest and urban sprawl (already on former forest lands), Aarey forest, May 2018. Photograph by Michael Leung.
- 41 Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation, Project Funding, www.mmrcl.com/en/project/project-funding.
30Tonight is our third night in Aarey, a 3,166-acre (1,281-hectare) forest in Mumbai, that has experienced deforestation by a new metro line and metro carriage depot (Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. supported by the Japan International Cooperation Agency).41 Similar to other grand infrastructure projects around the world, speed and convenience often prevails, in the courts and public’s imagination, over rights to the land, the environment and biodiversity.
- 42 JyotiShinoli, ‘Cagedinconcrete’, PeoplesArchiveofRuralIndia (March6,2019), https://ruralindiaonline (...)
31Last April 2017, around 300 tribals (Indigenous people) were displaced/evicted from their villages (tribal hamlets know as padas).42 Following the deforestation of 82 acres (33 hectares) with 3,000+ trees, I think about what feminist scholar Donna Haraway encourages us to do, collaborate with all terrans that inhabit this earth—everything living.
- 43 Zeeshan Mirza, Biodiversity of Aarey Milk Colony and Film City (report submitted to GovernmentofMah (...)
32Similar to the 3,000+ trees and 300 tribals, biodiversity (some even discovered in Aarey forest) such as the buthid scorpion (Lychas aareyensis), tarantula (Heterophrictus aareyeneis) and Atlas moth (Attacus atlas) faced eviction through violent deforestation.43 Urban development and such infrastructure projects are a new form of colonization, creating the irony where the once colonized becomes the new colonizer—a self-inflicted wound by the government, at the expense of present and future terrans.
- 44 Mahatma Gandhi, Gandhi on Villages, ed. by Divya Joshi (Mumbai: Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya, 20 (...)
- 45 Woodbine NYC, ‘Coordinates’, YouTube (April 30, 2018), www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1FPW-_j-Mw.
33I recall how much Mahatma Gandhi valued the village and villagers’ ways of life during India’s struggle for independence against the British Empire.44 Today this Empire is biopolitical and we negotiate our complicity in our daily lives—how we think, who we work for, where we spend our money, etc.45
- 46 ‘Save Aarey’, Facebook, www.facebook.com/groups/saveaarey.
- 47 UNICEF, Our History, http://unicef.in/WhoWeAre/History; Maggie Black, ‘Civilization follows the cow (...)
- 48 See ‘Save Aarey short film by Asana, 2018’, www.studioleung.com.
- 49 ‘Aarey dairy butterfly garden—in memory of Shri Vinay Athalye’, Facebook,www.facebook.com/Aarey-Dai (...)
34In the past few days, members of ArtOxygen and the Save Aarey Facebook group46 have spent valuable time with us in Aarey forest. They guided us through the capillaries in the forest; showed us many of the thirty-two cattle sheds and a couple of the twenty-seven padas; created seed sharing opportunities with Warli tribals; entered the (disused?) 1954 UNICEF-supported milk processing plant and research labs filled with Swedish machinery47; introduced us to the hardworking fruit hawkers at each crossroad; drove past the epic, closed down Imperial Grand Palace Hotel;48 met paper bag makers working in their homes; and visited the Aarey Dairy Butterfly Garden that was grown in memory of Shri Vinay Athalye, whose family planted over 5,500 saplings in Aarey.49

Fig. 23 Villagers outside a cattle shed sharing padas locations, Aarey forest, May 2018. Photograph by Michael Leung.
- 50 Indian Anarchist Federation, The Coming Anarchy: Indian Anarchist Federations’ Blog, www.thecominga (...)
- 51 Dalit Diva, ‘Why it is time to dump Gandhi’, Medium (June 14, 2017), www.medium.com/@dalitdiva/why- (...)
35I remember a couple of conversations in the past few days that may add momentum to the Save Aarey movement. One was about the twenty-seven pada leaders being all male, and the second, my email exchanges with the Indian Anarchist Federation.50 The former conversation likely echoes Gandhi’s views towards women and adds an urgency to Haraway’s all-inclusive future.51

Fig. 25 Leopard Tomato seed packet in Hindi and Marathi, Aarey forest, May 2018. Photograph by Michael Leung. English translation: ‘Organic seeds. Save seeds and share with other padas. Justice for all terrans living in Aarey’.
- 52 Scroll, ‘Mumbai metro a threat to Aarey’, Facebook, www.facebook.com/scroll.in/videos/1478604038889 (...)
- 53 ‘Horizontalidad’, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopaedia (August 8, 2019), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki (...)
36Learning from Vanita, a Warli tribal, and later watching her interview online teaches me that such a movement can only keep flourishing and go from strength to strength.52 I felt the same way when Amrita, a Save Aarey group member, spoke to me about the importance of organising in horizontal ways—confronting what we may have experienced in other stagnant movements.53
- 54 Constitution of the Iroquois Nation: The Great Binding Law, Gayanashagowa, http://resources.utulsa. (...)
37Today and yesterday the Indian Anarchist Federation inspired me to think about prospective participants to the movement (I will follow up with them tomorrow). This text is partly written for them, as well as anyone who is not yet engaged with what is to come at Aarey, in this destructive neoliberal world where governments and corporations collude and put profit over people, all terrans and future generations. Perhaps one day we will be more responsible like the Indigenous people in North America who think seven generations ahead.54

Fig. 26 Map sharing with young villagers. Fifty A3 maps with the ethnographic text on the back were. distributed to the public on 20th May 2018, Aarey forest, May 2018. Photograph by Michael Leung.
38Solidarity with the ZAD (Notre-Dame-des-Landes), Little Miyashita Garden (Tokyo), Wang Chau (Hong Kong), Aarey (Mumbai), and many more, and the courage to go beyond.

Fig. 27 After six days living in Aarey forest, on May 21, 2018 the original 102 x 100 cm map was gifted to the Save Aarey movement. Photograph by Michael Leung.
***
39Since visiting Aarey in May 2018, I have kept in contact with most of the people in the Solidarity with Aarey text, sharing weblinks, photos, texts and anything that could help the movement against the deforestation and evictions caused by the metro infrastructure project.
- 55 ‘Save Aarey’, Facebook, www.facebook.com/groups/saveaarey.
40Living in the forest, albeit for only six days, had a lasting impression on me and I found myself writing a short fictional story about Aarey in late May 2018. The story was called Planet Earth: Mumbai’s Leopards and speculates about a more critical approach by broadcaster and naturalist Richard Attenborough for his documentary series Planet Earth. The story was shared with the Save Aarey Facebook group55 and even the Planet Earth team, who serendipitously emailed me a day after I finished writing the story.
- 56 ‘Daily Ration @Peng Chau [en] counters: Hong Kong-Mumbai art exchange project—4 November 2018’, Fac (...)
41When Art Together started to organize the other part of the artist exchange in Hong Kong in November 2018, I decided to turn Planet Earth: Mumbai’s Leopards into a zine.56 I contacted Mahesh Bariya, a Warli artist that I had met in Aarey, and asked him if he would be interested to create two artworks in response to my story. I was curious to know what he would imagine from my story and how he would apply the unique Warli line drawing technique.

Fig. 28 Warli artwork showing the coexistence between tribals, leopards and biodiversity, November 2018. Artwork by Mahesh Bariya. 21 x 30 cm.
42Mahesh asked environmental journalist Hrushikesh Patil to kindly translate the story into Marathi, the main language spoken in the Maharashtra state. At a later date 20 books were posted to Mumbai and shared during an event that Aarey land protectors attended.
43The collaboration with Mahesh was a new creation process for me, in that it was generative and has potential to be further interpreted, and even adapted if willing, by its viewers. I am reminded by the power of storytelling and points four and seven in Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto:
- We will reassert the role of storytelling as more than mere entertainment. It is through stories that we weave reality.
- We will not lose ourselves in the elaboration of theories or ideologies. Our words will be elemental. We write with dirt under our fingernails.57

Fig. 29 Artist and teacher Jeetin sharing seeds in a pada in the centre of the forest, Aarey forest, May 2018. Photograph by Michael Leung.
44I wonder what seeds Vanita has stuck/stored on the mud wall at the entrance of her home, if she planted the ‘Red Farmers’ Fingers’ organic seeds (in Marathi तंबड़ शेतकरी बोट़, originally called Burgundy Okra) that I gave her, and if all the other seeds exchanges that happened in those six days sprouted into something else, both inside the forest, and beyond.
Coda: Future Growth

Fig. 30 Organic seed sharing during the Reclaim the Fields 2019 European Assembly, Florence, February 2019. Photograph by Michael Leung.
- 58 ‘wares’, Facebook, www.facebook.com/waresnotwarehouses.
Solidarity means not having to be alone in feeling the weight of the world.
— Anonymous, sticker from wares in Singapore58
- 59 Michael Leung, ‘Insurrectionary agricultural milieux’, Graph Commons, www.tinyurl.com/insurrectiona (...)
- 60 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Minnesota: Un (...)
45The three seed projects aim to highlight a rhizomatic research-creation methodology situated alongside land struggles against neoliberal development plans, that put profit over people.59 They are rhizomatic in that the seed projects roam freely as part of the commons and the seeds are disseminated through visible and invisible networks—the seed projects are recursive. In the book A Thousand Plateaus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia, philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari described a rhizome as ‘an acentered, non-hierarchical, non-signifying system without a General and without an organizing memory or central automaton’.60 The seeds and seedlings (both actors) are a central tool to the three seed projects, but during the creative group packaging activity, the conversations that happen on soil or the collective pedagogy that happens after planting, the seeds and various situated knowledges evolve and become shared and transformative through each season and harvest. A seed ontology happens—they have agency, and each following gesture, becomes an act of solidarity.
- 61 Elizabeth Povinelli, ‘The three figures of geontology’, in Anthropocene Feminism, ed. by Richard Gr (...)
46In The Three Figures of Geontology, anthropology and gender studies scholar Elizabeth Povinelli writes that, ‘The question THE ANIMIST poses is what happens when we extend one mode of being to all modes of existence’.61 Amidst the neoliberal development plans in Bishan Village, Wang Chau Village and Aarey Forest soil, seeds, mangoes, Very Spicy Friends, jackfruits, Chinese medicinal herbs and leopards all still exist and have ingrained knowledge and rich narratives to tell, before they are unwillingly forced to disappear. Research-creation gives the opportunity to work under new conditions of cultural creation and join existing/future movements, in solidarity, and contribute to a local and transnational citizen/activist humanities—one that is disseminated to students, peers and the general public. I hope that research-creation can be spread like organic seeds across different communities, activating a critical mass, that will protect people, biodiversity and the environment, for many future generations to come.
- 62 Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching (...)
People often ask me what one thing I would recommend to restore relationship between land and people. My answer is almost always, ‘Plant a garden’. It’s good for the health of the earth and it’s good for the health of people. A garden is a nursery for nurturing connection, the soil for cultivation of practical reverence. And its power goes far beyond the garden gate—once you develop a relationship with a little patch of earth, it becomes a seed itself.
— Robin Wall Kimmerer62
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Notes
1 Donna J. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991), p. 198.
2 Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), p. 4.
3 Kyohei Sakaguchi, Build Your Own Independent Nation (Tokyo: Doyosha, 2016), p. 17.
4 Alice Ko, et al., Wooferten’s Art/Activist in Residence 2013–2015, 活化廳藝術行動者 駐場計劃 2013–2015, ed. by Lee Chun Fung (Kaifong Meeting: Wooferten, 2016), www.issuu.com/leechunfung/docs/aair2-1-53.
5 ‘So Boring’, Facebook, www.facebook.com/wearesoboring.
6 ‘Community farming project, Mango King’, Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/pg/communityfarmingproject/photos/?tab=album&album_id=539877076141587, ‘Kai Fong Pai Dong, community farming project’, Tumblr, https://paidong.tumblr.com/search/communityfarmingproject.
7 ‘Yau Ma Tei Gardener’, www.ymtgardener.wordpress.com.
8 Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, preface to Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), p. x.
9 W. Lawrence Neuman, Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (Boston: Pearson, 2011), p. 30.
10 Michael Leung, Solidarity Street (Hong Kong: Black Book Press, 2017).
11 Linda Candy and Ernest Edmonds, ‘Practice-based research in the creative arts: Foundations and futures from the front line’, Leonard, 51.1 (2018), 63–69 (p. 63), https://doi.org/10.1162/leon_a_01471.
12 Mai Corlin, ‘Trojan horses in the Chinese countryside: Ou Ning and the Bishan Commune in dialogue and practice’, Field, 9 (2018), www.field-journal.com/issue-9/trojan-horses-in-the-chinese-countryside-ou-ning-and-the-bishan-commune-indialogue-and-practice.
13 Doxa, ‘Day 1 / After Occupy: From Cities to Rural / Ou Ning / Map Office’, Vimeo (February 12, 2012), www.vimeo.com/86557186.
14 Spring Workshop, HK Farm (2015), www.springworkshop.org/?lang=en#/hong-kong-farm.
15 The School of Tillers (www.facebook.com/schooloftillers) is named after the ‘anarchist movement of peasant intellectuals who set out to create egalitarian communities in the cracks and fissures between states’ (David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years (New York: Melville House Printing, 2011), p. 237).
16 I would like to share my gratitude to Zhao Kunfang in supporting this text. Her ethnography and close relationships with the Bishan villagers and commune members are inspiring and continue to influence me.
17 Sun Yunfan and Leah Thompson (dir.), ‘Down to the countryside’, ChinaFile (December 15, 2014), www.chinafile.com/multimedia/video/down-countryside.
18 Naveen Mahantesh, Ankit Bhargava and Srajana Kaikini, ‘Negotiating routes: Ecologies of the byways part IV’, Ecologies of the Excess (April 19, 2015), www.foa-flux.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/naveen-mahantesh-19-april-2015.pdf and www.ecologiesoftheexcess.wordpress.com.
19 For a video of Mrs. Ling receiving seed packets, that Michael recorded after his first visit to Bishan Village in May 2015, see Michael Leung, ‘Bishan Village, May 2015’, Vimeo (21 May, 2015), https://vimeo.com/128492051.
20 Zhao Kunfang, ‘Beyond Bishan’, in The HK FARMers’ Almanac 2014–2015 (Hong Kong: Spring Workshop, 2015) 17, www.tinyurl.com/BeyondBishan.
21 Leila McNeill, ‘The women who transformed how we teach geography’, Smithsonian.com (January 18, 2018), www.smithsonianmag.com/science/woman-who-transformed-how-we-teach-geography-180967859.
22 Elaine W. Ho, Zhao Kunfan and Michael Leung, ‘Beyond Bishan map’, Bishan Project (2015), www.tinyurl.com/BeyondBishanMap.
23 The HK FARMers’ Almanac 2014–2015 (Hong Kong: Spring Workshop, 2015), www.springworkshop.org/?lang=en#/the-hk-farmers-almanac-online.
24 Wen, ‘North East new territories’, Tumblr, www.dungbak.tumblr.com.
25 Sarah E. Truman, ‘Becoming more than it never (actually) was: Expressive writing as research-creation’, Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 13.2 (2016), 136–143 (p. 138), https://doi.org/10.1080/15505170.2016.1150226.
26 Zhao, Ho and Leung (2015).
27 Bishan Crafts Cooperatives, D & DEPARTMENTHUANGSHAN, www.d-department.com/ext/shop/huangshan.html.
28 The Invisible Committee, Now (Cambridge: Semiotext (e), 2017), p. 45.
29 ‘Wang Chau green belt concern group 橫洲綠化帶發展關注組’, Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/wangchaugreen.
30 Michael Leung, ‘Seeds of Awareness’, XXI Architecture and Design Magazine (March 28, 2018), www.xximagazine.com/c/seeds-of-awareness.
31 ‘Wang Chau Jackfruit Adoption Project poster’, Facebook, www.facebook.com/wangchaugreen/photos/a.1737684636460983/2048343148728462/?type=3&theater and www.facebook.com/wangchaugreen/photos/a.1737684636460983/225063610 5165831/?type=3 & theater.
32 Silvia Federici, Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons (Oakland: PM Press, 2019), p. 1.
33 ‘Grow Heathrow—transition Heathrow’, Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/transitionheathrow.
34 Martin Krenn, ‘Choi Yuen Village scheduled for demolition’ (2009), www.martinkrenn.net/choi_yuen_village/info.html?fbclid=IwAR1D_9S9Sjntcn8F6J0Bu TDbmPHOv7lZI_p7oiFTDAAgjFG76iMnxMdVMmI.
35 Pagans We Are, ‘Substantial victory for Indigenous villages opposing 2nd airport on Jeju Island, South Korea?’, Pagans We Are (November 14, 2017), www.pagansweare.com/2017/11/14/substantial-victory-for-indigenous-villages-opposing-2nd-airport-on-jeju-island-south-korea.
36 Rose Bridger, ‘Taiwan: residents resist forced eviction for ‘Aerotropolis’ megaproject’, Ecologist: Journal for the Post-Industrial Age (December 16, 2014), www.theecologist.org/2014/dec/16/taiwan-residents-resist-forced-eviction-aerotropolis-megaproject.
37 Comitato NO TAV—Torino, www.notavtorino.org/documenti/inglese/indice.htm.
38 Art Together, [en] counters public art project (2018), www.arttogether.org/dailyration.html.
39 Neuman (2011), p. 424.
40 Donna J. Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2016), p. 101.
41 Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation, Project Funding, www.mmrcl.com/en/project/project-funding.
42 JyotiShinoli, ‘Cagedinconcrete’, PeoplesArchiveofRuralIndia (March6,2019), https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/caged-in-concrete-an-adivasi-urban-nightmare/.
43 Zeeshan Mirza, Biodiversity of Aarey Milk Colony and Film City (report submitted to GovernmentofMaharashtraandTheForestDepartmentofMaharashtra, 2010), www.researchgate.net/profile/Zeeshan_Mirza2/publication/235698986_Biodiversity_of_Aarey_Milk_Colony_and_Film_City/links/0912f512b572f2e5fb000000/Biodiversity-of-Aarey-Milk-Colony-and-Film-City.pdf; Badri Chatterjee, ‘Aarey home to many known, unknown species: reveals study’, Hindustan Times (March 9, 2015), www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai/aarey-home-to-many-known-unknown-species-reveals-study/story-0BdiHEFC6FL5AQQmZP3VeN.html.
44 Mahatma Gandhi, Gandhi on Villages, ed. by Divya Joshi (Mumbai: Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya, 2002); Mahatma Gandhi, Village Swaraj, ed. by H. M. Vyas (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1962).
45 Woodbine NYC, ‘Coordinates’, YouTube (April 30, 2018), www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1FPW-_j-Mw.
46 ‘Save Aarey’, Facebook, www.facebook.com/groups/saveaarey.
47 UNICEF, Our History, http://unicef.in/WhoWeAre/History; Maggie Black, ‘Civilization follows the cow’, in The Children and the Nations: The Story of Unicef (New York: Unicef, 1986), pp. 141–167, www.unicef.org/about/history/files/Child-Nation-M-Black-Ch06-p141-167-civilzation-follows-cow.pdf.
48 See ‘Save Aarey short film by Asana, 2018’, www.studioleung.com.
49 ‘Aarey dairy butterfly garden—in memory of Shri Vinay Athalye’, Facebook,www.facebook.com/Aarey-Dairy-Butterfly-Garden-In-memory-of-Shri-Vinay-Athalye-402679483235670.
50 Indian Anarchist Federation, The Coming Anarchy: Indian Anarchist Federations’ Blog, www.thecominganarchy.wordpress.com.
51 Dalit Diva, ‘Why it is time to dump Gandhi’, Medium (June 14, 2017), www.medium.com/@dalitdiva/why-it-is-time-to-dump-gandhi-b59c7399fe66.
52 Scroll, ‘Mumbai metro a threat to Aarey’, Facebook, www.facebook.com/scroll.in/videos/1478604038889138.
53 ‘Horizontalidad’, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopaedia (August 8, 2019), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontalidad.
54 Constitution of the Iroquois Nation: The Great Binding Law, Gayanashagowa, http://resources.utulsa.edu/law/classes/rice/Constitutional/Six_Nations_Const.htm.
55 ‘Save Aarey’, Facebook, www.facebook.com/groups/saveaarey.
56 ‘Daily Ration @Peng Chau [en] counters: Hong Kong-Mumbai art exchange project—4 November 2018’, Facebook, www.facebook.com/events/177165356522189.
57 Dougald Hine and Paul Kingsnorth, Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto (Croydon: The Dark Mountain Project, 2014), p. 31.
58 ‘wares’, Facebook, www.facebook.com/waresnotwarehouses.
59 Michael Leung, ‘Insurrectionary agricultural milieux’, Graph Commons, www.tinyurl.com/insurrectionaryam.
60 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), p. 21.
61 Elizabeth Povinelli, ‘The three figures of geontology’, in Anthropocene Feminism, ed. by Richard Grusin (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017), pp. 49–64 (p. 61).
62 Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (Minnesota: Milkweed Editions, 2013), pp. 126–127.
Table des illustrations
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Légende | Fig. 1 Hand-painted map showing three places. Illustration by Michael Leung (2019). 29.7 x 21 cm. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-1.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 64k |
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Légende | Fig. 2 Village entrance 20 minutes before an eviction, Ma Shi Po Village, Hong Kong, May 2016. Photograph by Wen. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-2.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 76k |
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Légende | Fig. 3 Mango King pointing at the papaya trees that are fruiting, Hong Kong, July 2014. Photograph by Michael Leung. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-3.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 76k |
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Légende | Fig. 4 Village houses, Bishan Village, August 2015. Photograph by Zhao Kunfang. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-4.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 66k |
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Légende | Fig. 5 Mr. Hu’s garden, Bishan Village, May 2015. Photograph by Michael Leung. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-5.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 78k |
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Légende | Fig. 6 Jalapeño chilli pepper seed packet, Bishan Village, China, May 2015.Illustration by Sun Yunfan. 21 x 21 cm. English translation: ‘Very SpicyFriend. Organic seeds. Save seeds and share with other villagers. Sow and harvest information (number of days)’. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-6.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 20k |
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Légende | Fig. 7 Making seed packets with commune members, School of Tillers, Bishan Village, May 2015. Photograph by Michael Leung. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-7.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 39k |
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Légende | Fig. 8 Kunfang sharing seeds with Grandma Huihua at her home, Bishan Village, May 2015. Photograph by Michael Leung. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-8.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 64k |
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Légende | Fig. 9 Beyond Bishan map front, November 2015. 42 x 59.4 cm. Created by Elaine W. Ho, Zhao Kunfang and Michael Leung. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-9.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 57k |
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Légende | Fig. 10 Beyond Bishan map back, November 2015. 42 x 59.4 cm. Created by Elaine W. Ho, Zhao Kunfang and Michael Leung. Additional illustrations by Natalie Lo Lai Lai. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-10.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 31k |
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Légende | Fig. 11 Mr. and Mrs. Fang reading Fang Fang Shang Dian in their home, Bishan Village, August 2016. Film screen capture by Michael Leung. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-11.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 46k |
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Légende | Fig. 12 Villager Wang Huilan’s plants from our seed project, Bishan Village, August 2015. Photograph by Zhao Kunfang. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-12.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 94k |
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Légende | Fig. 13 Villager Wang Huilan showing two seed packets posted on her wall, Bishan Village, August 2015. Photograph by Zhao Kunfang. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-13.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 73k |
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Légende | Fig. 14 Mrs. Ling receiving seed packets in a short film that I made following my first visit to Bishan Village, May 2015. www.vimeo.com/128492051. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-14.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 56k |
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Légende | Fig. 15 Wang Chau Village, Hong Kong, December 2017. Photograph by the Wang Chau Green Belt Concern Group. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-15.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 74k |
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Légende | Fig. 16 2017 Wang Chau Jackfruit Festival, Wang Chau, July 2017. Photograph by Ng Cheuk Hang. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-16.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 61k |
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Légende | Fig. 17 Planting jackfruit seeds at Kai Fong Pai Dong, Hong Kong, August 2017. Photograph by Amy Wu. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-17.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 67k |
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Légende | Fig. 18 Selected photographs from the Wang Chau Jackfruit Adoption Project Whatsapp group. Locations from top left to bottom right: Tung Chung*, Sheung Wan*, Foshan (China), Lau Shui Heung* (*Hong Kong), 2019. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-18.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 97k |
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Légende | Fig. 19 Michael and Amy at Kai Fong Pai Dong, Hong Kong, August 2017. Photograph by Yelta Köm and Elif Çak Köm. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-19.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 57k |
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Légende | Fig. 20 Mango Station on the cross junction of Dinkarrao Dessai Road and Konkan Vikas Mahamandal Road, Aarey forest, May 2018. Photograph by Michael Leung. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-20.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 80k |
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Légende | Fig. 21 Vanita, a Warli tribal, teaching a child how to open an Indian Almond, Aarey forest, May 2018. Photograph by Michael Leung. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-21.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 37k |
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Légende | Fig. 22 Aarey forest and urban sprawl (already on former forest lands), Aarey forest, May 2018. Photograph by Michael Leung. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-22.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 51k |
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Légende | Fig. 23 Villagers outside a cattle shed sharing padas locations, Aarey forest, May 2018. Photograph by Michael Leung. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-23.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 50k |
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Légende | Fig. 24 Making organic seed packets together, Aarey forest, May 2018. Photograph by Michael Leung. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-24.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 59k |
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Légende | Fig. 25 Leopard Tomato seed packet in Hindi and Marathi, Aarey forest, May 2018. Photograph by Michael Leung. English translation: ‘Organic seeds. Save seeds and share with other padas. Justice for all terrans living in Aarey’. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-25.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 36k |
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Légende | Fig. 26 Map sharing with young villagers. Fifty A3 maps with the ethnographic text on the back were. distributed to the public on 20th May 2018, Aarey forest, May 2018. Photograph by Michael Leung. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-26.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 41k |
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Légende | Fig. 27 After six days living in Aarey forest, on May 21, 2018 the original 102 x 100 cm map was gifted to the Save Aarey movement. Photograph by Michael Leung. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-27.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 86k |
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Légende | Fig. 28 Warli artwork showing the coexistence between tribals, leopards and biodiversity, November 2018. Artwork by Mahesh Bariya. 21 x 30 cm. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-28.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 72k |
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Légende | Fig. 29 Artist and teacher Jeetin sharing seeds in a pada in the centre of the forest, Aarey forest, May 2018. Photograph by Michael Leung. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-29.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 47k |
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Légende | Fig. 30 Organic seed sharing during the Reclaim the Fields 2019 European Assembly, Florence, February 2019. Photograph by Michael Leung. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20628/img-30.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 68k |
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