Governors Island

Carman and Melanie Ida Chopko present Lettuce Lane, an interactive roadway median planted with lettuce seedlings, sprouts and edible wilds for participants to harvest their own locally grown salad. This agriculturally based performance prompts participants to engage with concepts of local and slow food production, edible foraging, and heirloom seeds. Accompanying the installation, a limited edition collaged field guide, Lettuce Eat, identifies a variety of specialty greens and sprouts by their variations in leaf shape, taste and history.

Reminiscent of the wildly successful Victory Gardens of WWII, in which front lawns were transformed into farm gardens to produce 40% of the nations food supply, Lettuce Lane highlights the underutilized capacity for food production in New York City. The installation includes a Lettuce Action Center, in which participants can complete a thank you note to various city agencies for their support of urban food production, and request further collaboration for the local food production movement.

Lettuce Lane is a part of FIGMENT, a celebration of participatory art and creative culture on Governors Island in New York Harbor. The event is free and open to the public June 27-29th. Lettuce Lane is also an extension of the 2007 cross-country research tour, State of Progress (stateofprogress.org).

As artists, Carman and Chopko integrate their creative work with their occupations as teachers and cultivators. Carman manages the Brooklyn Children's Museum's Greenhouse and Garden, curating plant species for the exploration of ethno-botany and natural science. Chopko manages the compost system at Added Value, which operates a 2.75 acre urban farm working towards the sustainability redevelopment of Red Hook, Brooklyn.