Abstract

“Portrait of a Sweet Potato and Other Characters from the Edible Plant Archive” is a multi-tiered garden bed and video sculpture. The garden bed houses several plants that have been significant to the survival of Black people in the United States and is accompanied by a collection of videos published by Black content creators on YouTube talking about how to grow, harvest, and cook these plants. Through this project I’ve sought to honor some of the plants that my family’s story is rooted to and the online community that has gifted me access to an area of cultural knowledge that I did not grow up with. I chose to do this by creating a physical artifact in order to give people a real world space to swim in the sense of community and culture that I found online. In early May, Black folks and other community members were invited to help plant the seedlings I’d been growing over the past few months to initiate “Portrait of a Sweet Potato” as a community artifact. This project has been an exploration in community artifacts, online archives, and ancestral plant wisdom as tools of sustenance for myself and a community I feel accountable to.

Research

My research began with determining what plants I should include in this project. There are many plants that are important in Black/Afro-cultural cooking traditions or have been influential in sustaining Black folk’s survival in the U.S. but I narrowed my choices down based on the stories I found most compelling, personal preferences, and the ecological relationships between these plants i.e., whether or not they would live well together. My final selections were sweet potatoes, okra, collards, and watermelon. This process also included researching how to care for and obtain these plants. I then continued on by going through hours and hours of YouTube videos to find a nice selection of recipes, gardening/farming tips, and how to videos about these plants. While YouTube was a major source of information I also sought out a lot of literature about Black American culinary traditions and land stewardship practices. Below is a list of some of the the most influential readings: Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land, High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America, and The Healing Wisdom of Africa: Finding Life Purpose Through Nature, Ritual, and Community. Link to the Edible Plant Archive Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/@Mxyxd_Media/playlists?view=50&sort=dd&shelf_id=3 A full bibliography and more detailed research notes can be found in the documentation on my website.

Technical Details

The main garden bed is a plaster structure with a PVC pipe and wire mesh frame. The plaster in the inner chamber is painted with gesso acrylic. The smaller planters are five gallon plastic buckets also covered with wire mesh and plaster. The housing for the video screen was also created with the same method. All my video is stored on an SD card and plugged into a Micca media player that is connected to a portable screen.