Three Sisters Garden - Companion Planting is a proposal
to develop a garden based on the sustainable Native
American agricultural practice of growing corn, beans
and squash together with sunflowers. This proposal was
created for Flushing Meadows Corona Park and took the
form of a map outlining the rich history of the site
after I visited as a finalist for The Queens Museum
Artists’’ Gardens Commission.
Queens has the reputation of being the most diverse
city in the world and the main criteria for the garden
commission was to address the surrounding users of the
park. Unfortunately the original users were dispossessed
many moons ago. So this garden was conceived to commemorate
their presence and to remind us all of their unique
sustainable agricultural practice into the fabric of
the Botanical Garden. Besides having local Native Americans
plant, raise and harvest the crops, the garden would
represent a contemporary version of traditional agricultural
practice and serve to educate others about traditions
and myths. Designed around a central sweat lodge frame
to entice viewers into the nterior of the garden, an
audio system buried in the ground would emanate Native
American stories.
