Vacant Lot of Cabbages

The Vacant Lot of Cabbages was an art intervention by artist Barry Thomas in Wellington. On 4 January 1978, Thomas planted 150 cabbage seedlings spelling the word "CABBAGE" on an empty site. It was an early Guerrilla vegetable garden, planted on a derelict, demolished, building site at the central city intersection of Manners St and Willis St. The art occupation lasted for nearly six months and involved many other artists, architects, performers, schools, the Commission for the Environment, Wellington City Council, QEII Arts Council, and green groups with significant engagement from the citizens of Wellington. After many spontaneous events and headlines, Thomas and collaborators completed the installation with a week-long festival.

Location

The Vacant Lot of Cabbages was planted on the site where the Duke of Edinburgh Hotel and the Roxy Cinema were formerly located. In 1975 the central city site was purchased by Anthony Kostanich and the AM and KM Griffiths Trust. The two buildings on the site were demolished, leaving it vacant for over 2 years. The site was described as an 'eyesore' by local media. The Duke of Edinburgh Hotel was popular with Wellington's radical, artistic intelligentsia, such as poet James K. Baxter and Geoff Murphy from Blerta. The Roxy Theatre was a 24 hour continuous cinema.

Inspiration

Thomas was a cameraperson at the National film unit and had studied art at the Ilam School of fine arts. Vacant Lot of Cabbages was a response to public pressure arising from the vacant site.
Thomas had read news reports of the Values Party members who attempted to plant native trees on the site. Thomas felt growing food as a work of art in the heart of the city would be unique and viable. He had also read in Art in America of the replanting of indigenous biota in New York city by artists like Alan Sonfist. Like many New Zealanders at that time, Thomas' childhood was influenced by his family growing their own vegetables in their quarter-acre suburban plot.
Thomas applied his interpretation of Marcel Duchamp's ideas around the importance of the observer in art by inviting Wellingtonians to participate. After the initial planting he challenged the public in the press to own the future viability of the site, the nurturing of the vulnerable plants, by tending and watering them. Thomas deliberately walked away from the work and went on holiday for three weeks to the far north. He later called this art challenge system "Jeter le gant.".
By writing the word "CABBAGE" using cabbage seedlings, Thomas played on Rene Magritte's "The treachery of images" by suggesting that the symbol or word for something can also be the thing itself.
Dr. Marcus Moore has described Thomas' modus operandi as working with people not about them.

Artwork (Action)

On 4 January 1978 Thomas bought a truck load of topsoil. Helped by friends Hugh Walton, Chris Lipscombe, and Roger Nichol they set out a plant bed on the site. Photographer Justin Keen documented the event.
The site itself comprised compacted clay, concrete debris, and gravel. They cut the wire fence around the site to let the truck in, then tipped out the soil and raked it into a square. The press said no-one had previously thought of the idea of planting a food garden. Thomas bought 150 cabbage seedlings from the local gardening shop and the team set about planting out the seedlings in the shape of the word "CABBAGE." The adjacent fish shop provided a hose from their water tap to water the seedlings.
Thomas saw the Vacant Lot of Cabbages as a contest between the market forced zeitgeist of the age, the largely male dominated CBD land owners, the public's role therein, and the overpowering human domination of the environment – the nature/culture polemic.
In his 'book' "Vacant lot of cabbages – a bit" which he sold for 60c with Mark Hantler on the final day of the Last Roxy show 21 June 1978, he wrote two poems in which he described this art event as "He had an idea, born of frustration... doleing responsibility " and he called "Time gentlemen..."

Reaction

On 5 January 1978 the The Evening Post wrote an article titled "Mystery garden appears on city's problem section" planted by a "Phantom Gardener." The paper suggested that the garden had been planted in the dead of night. Although the New Zealand Values Party had wanted to make a park of the eyesore site, they had been unaware of the vegetable garden. Even the visiting Spike Milligan was initially blamed. The next day Thomas met with a reporter and the artwork became front page news. In the article Thomas declared the garden as a work of art and challenged the public and council, saying "Whether they just leave them, or steal them, or run over them with motorbikes is part of the art because it is a reflection of our culture... It's a unification of nature with the culture of our society."
Thomas initially fed the seedlings with chicken manure. Other artists, environmental groups, and activists helped look after the garden. The landowner stated that he wished the garden well and he hoped they had a fruitful crop.
In the next few weeks the site became a "soap box art corner" as other people added to the installation. Additions included an IBM mainframe 7330 computer magnetic tape unit plugged into the cabbage patch by Joe Bleakley, Brian Kassler and flatmates; two TV sets; a bust of Beethoven watching TV; a grave with an emerging corpse; a sign "eat at Joe's"; a toilet; couches, an armchair; a clothes washing machine; an electric heater; a telephone; a pile of Playboy magazines; a garden gnome party and a scarecrow; an old garden gate; a letter box; a section of fence; tables; "Basil" a waiter with a cabbage head and a carrot nose wearing a boiler suit; a solitary beer bottle; an assortment of flags; a crate of empty beer bottles; a family photo; and a milk bottle full of flowers.
On 16 January a pink monocycle, fashioned from a child's tricycle by George Rose, joined the site. Alister Barry and Rose attached it to the northern wall of the site eight metres up using dyna-bolt fasteners. The monocycle had a fluorescent, pink spray painted trail that ran from a street-side storm water drain on Manners street, under the cabbage patch, and up to the Duchampian cycle.
The cabbages were watered by locals including Jerry Luccros of Zenith's plant shop who used the adjacent fish shop's hose and tap. The Cabbage Patch drew larger crowds than the Dominion Museum. Then mayor Sir Michael Fowler praised the interventions for humourously drawing attention to the vacant site.
On 25 January 1978, having received complaints and a verbal request from the absent owners the Wellington City Council considered doing something about the pop-up art corner. Deputy Town Clerk Allan Smyth discussed matters with the police and lawyers and decided to clear the "home away from home" site. Smyth left the cabbages alone, saying "the cabbage patch is probably harmless and can, I think, remain for a while at least."
In May 1978 a group of women variously known as W.O.N.A.A.C. and W.A.G. repurposed a large papier-mâché pig with the face of the then Prime Minister Robert Muldoon. They placed the pig in with the cabbages. On its side they had painted the words "Media, media stop the Pig – time to stop dancing to his Jig." The pig on the site was headlined in newspapers when Pat Sheeran, likely a Muldoon supporter, moved the pig to the side of the site.

A Festival for Trees, the Last Roxy Show and the Free Coleslaw Party 17–21 June 1978

Landscape architect Bryan McDonald and business partner Barry McIntyre had exhibited Native Gardens in a nearby art gallery in early 1978. They were then approached by John Hill of the then Commission for the Environment that initiated the idea to explore ways to advocate for native forests - fauna and flora using the fame of the Cabbage Patch site. Architect Sir Ian Athfield and Barry Thomas were included to round out the team to collaborate on creating a festival to end the Vacant Lot of Cabbages occupation. The festival was given three names - A Festival for Trees, the Free Coleslaw Party and the overarching The Last Roxy Show that continued the project's connection with the environment.
The Commission for the Environment, the Wellington Regional Arts Council, Wellington City Council, Forest and Bird, the Native Forest Action Council and private interests all sponsored and supported the event. The site's owner was also in favour.
The five-day long Festival ran from 17–21 June 1978. Fifty cabbages and seven bags of carrots were made into free coleslaw for the audience. Sir Ian Athfield designed a travelling cottage which acted as a show-home advocating for native forests. The cottage was built by Barry McIntyre and was later towed around the North Island selling and promoting native trees.
Around 100 children, staff and parents from Matauranga School, Cashmere Avenue, Clyde Quay School, St. Peter and Paul's Primary schools all marched through the central city from Rutherford House to the site. The cottage was drawn by two Clydesdale horses loaned by a Levin farmer. Children and teachers dressed up as threatened native birds including papier-mâché bird masks.
Photographer Ans Westra documented much of the final day, and Dame Gaylene Preston took hundreds of polaroid photographs of attendees which she displayed on the walls.
Tall murals were painted around the remaining walls of the site by students and staff from Wellington High School and Saint Patrick's College. They were led by painters Robert McLeod and Robert Taylor. The murals emulated McCahon's style and included native tree names and graffiti style slogans to promote saving New Zealand native forests and fauna.
The site was covered with young native trees lent by the council. Simulated bird calls blended with traffic noise. A stage was created from two soft covered truck trailers from which performers, dancers, musicians, and poets including Ian Wedde and Sam Hunt performed.
Red Mole theatre troupe performed "Harold Bigsby comes to town." This story centred around a character encouraged by the Minister of Lands, Venn Young to go and make a living chopping native trees. "if you wanna earn some money gotta chop down trees, forget all those thoughts bout the birds and the bees..." Sir Sam Neill's film "Red Mole on the road" depicts this drama.
Chris Lipscombe researched and displayed archival documents that displayed the successive ownership of the site.
Chemists analysed the cabbages and after initial fears they might contain lead, were found fit to eat.

The Phoenix ending

The Vacant Lot of Cabbages, The Last Roxy Show and The Free Coleslaw Party all finished on the winter solstice, 21 June 1978. The cabbages planted six months earlier, and which had remained untouched, were ceremonially harvested and sacrificially burned by Thomas to the beat of Red Mole theatre troupe's band. An anthropologist gave an historical account of the Bastion Point occupation which had ended a month prior. Faux scientists in white coats lectured on stage and Thomas encouraged the audience to chant "roast pork and cabbages."
Thomas was dressed in a white Arab Dishdash and a black Catholic Cassock. His was face painted half black and half white, reflecting Thomas' unificatory, anti-polemic, anti-war ideals. Children wound a rope through the crowd encircling the cabbages and a knot was tied into a circle uniting the audience.
Stephanie Edmond wrote "Nature came to the city but it had to come invited through the artist under the name 'work of art'."

Wider influence

The Vacant Lot of Cabbages was an early example of many art movements: Tactical Urbanism, Situationist, Participatory, Conceptual, Post Object Art, Environmental, Intervention, Street, Participatory, Community, Socially engaged practice, Outside the Gallery, Guerrilla, Feral, Political, Activist art, Anthropocene, Site-specific art.
Mark Amery has cited the Vacant Lot of Cabbages and its links with the Occupy movement as an early example of artists being respected as key social leaders.
The editorial of the Evening Post summed the final week's Last Roxy Show as a "Respite from Ugliness" and how the festival gave the city a much needed lift.
Chris Trotter identified the Vacant Lot of Cabbages as "a conceptual artistic statement against the life-negating conservatism of the Muldoon years quite literally grew into a life-affirming challenge to Wellington's bureaucratic soul".
It was claimed that people passing the Vacant Lot of Cabbages in buses laughed all the way to the railway station, some two kilometers away. The site prompted Truth to describe Wellington as the "New Zealand humour capital". Thomas' art also sought to engage and foster community in the context of growing global environmental concerns.
Dr. Bridie Lonie wrote that the Cabbage Patch was an early forerunner of Anthropocene environmental art, hence its inclusion in the international Eco Art Database. Ian Wedde proposed that Vacant Lot of Cabbages was akin to an ecological territorial land-squabble. As a result of the success of Vacant Lot of Cabbages, Thomas and others started the Artists' Co-op which incubated conceptual, Free-Jazz and more traditional artists and employed them on the Government's Temporary Employment Programme employment scheme. This led directly to the establishment of Summer City, which since 1979 has repurposed under-patronised public parks and reserves as entertainment venues.
The Values Party of New Zealand called for all future sites awaiting development to be used as "People's parks". Wellington has also annually hosted another re-purposing of public space for art – the Performance Arcade, which houses art performances in temporarily placed shipping-containers.
In 1979 Thomas exhibited a set of documents relating to the Vacant Lot of Cabbages at the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts in Wellington.
In 2012 Te Papa Tongarewa purchased Thomas' archive of the event, claiming it represented "An important moment in New Zealand's art and social history."

Art and the media

In one of six front page stories Thomas declared the garden as his work of art then sidestepped the usual planning regulations and decision making laws by challenging and handing over the baton or paint brush to the citizenry: "whether they just leave them, steal them or run them over with motorbikes, it's part of the art because it's a reflection of our culture....It's a unification of nature with the culture of our society."
The Vacant Lot of Cabbages made national television news more than once.
Vacant Lot of Cabbages was included in the exhibition "When art hits the headlines" twice. First, Thomas uninvitedly rewrote the show's billboard to read "Hen art it's headles" Secondly, the show's curators stated that the public and newspapers closely monitored the Vacant Lot of Cabbages' growth.
Before the site was cleared of everything but the cabbages, the media suggested that Wellington was not such a dreary old capital after all, and the spontaneous additions of the Vacant Lot of Cabbages displayed a prideful sense of fun.
City Councillor Rosslyn Noonan said "The cabbage patch … always seemed to me to reflect a special Wellington spirit which grew over the next few years and contributed to make Wellington the liveable, human city it became."
In 1978, historian Redmer Yska, writing for New Zealand Truth, added to the humour associated with the project by saying the Cabbage Patch's time was up because the whole site was being transplanted to New York to be exhibited in MoMA's South Pacific wing, "Wellington's loss and New York's gain".