UCSC Greenhouse Project

Four people kneel in a cultivated garden bed, working together to prepare the soil with hand tools. In the foreground, one person wears a pink sweater and another a light blue hoodie, while two others work farther down the row. Wire fencing, irrigation lines, and trees surround the outdoor garden.
Name
UCSC Greenhouse Project
Short Description
Founded in 2022 by artists L Gilbert and Dav Bell, this intergenerational educational space at the UC Santa Cruz Farm brings together art, food, and climate justice. Working with farm staff, students, and interns, it serves as a site for social and agricultural experiments.
Description
Founded in 2022 by artists L Gilbert and Dav Bell, the project is an intergenerational educational space that centers art, food, and climate justice. It is rooted in the Farm at UC Santa Cruz, where Gilbert and Bell work alongside farm staff, students, and interns to build a lasting site for programming social and agricultural experiments. The project grew out of Gilbert and Bell’s MFA thesis work in the first graduating cohort of UC Santa Cruz’s Environmental Art and Social Practice program, and was presented in the cohort’s 2023 thesis exhibition, Gently Unbind, at the Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery. The greenhouse also hosted the exhibition’s closing gathering, extending the show from the gallery to the farm. Through hands-on growing, shared work, and public programs, the project treats the garden as a place where people of different generations can learn together and imagine more just food systems in a changing climate.
Type
en Academic Program
en Research Group
Founded
2022
Founder
Dav Bell and L Gilbert
Contributors
Professor Laurie Palmer
Affiliation
UC Santa Cruz
Climate & Ecology Themes
Climate Justice
Food Systems and Seed Sovereignty
Concepts
Care and Reciprocity
Place and Belonging
Youth and Futurity
Ecological Domain / Habitat
Agricultural / Working Lands
Methods & Approaches
Community-Based Practice
Collaborative / Co-Creation
Education and Pedagogy
Discipline / Field
Arts & Design
Environmental Art & Social Practice
Natural Sciences
Audience / Engagement
Community
Geographic Scope
Site-Specific / Single Site
Location
Santa Cruz, California
Partners
UCSC Farm and Center for Agroecology
Website
https://www.instagram.com/_the_greenhouse_project_/
Rights
Rights held by artist or creator
Current Status
Active
Item sets
California Art & Climate Archive
UC Santa Cruz
Media
Four people kneel in a cultivated garden bed, working together to prepare the soil with hand tools. In the foreground, one person wears a pink sweater and another a light blue hoodie, while two others work farther down the row. Wire fencing, irrigation lines, and trees surround the outdoor garden.UCSC Greenhouse Project