roof

Sage & flowering verbena with sculpture

Like a lot of works in an artist live work studio building, the line between art installation and randomly gifted discard is vague. This piece of sculpture came and went with the sage and verbena playing off the rusty plane.

roof garden diary: Spring to harvest 2012 on top of a building near Vancouver Harbour

guest appearances and additional voices by
Alex Rush
Katherine Lauriente
Ian Pringle
Anne-Marie Slater

duration: 68 minutes

This green roof is in the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Vancouver was also known as ‘The Terminal City’ at the time of its incorporation in 1886. Soon after, the precinct around this present day roof garden became established as Japantown, as ‘Nihonmachi’ in Japanese. The community was devastated by the government of Canada’s forced removal of Japanese Canadians and the uncompensated expropriation of their property in 1943. In subsequent decades, the neighbourhood became one of the poorest and most drug-ridden in Canada with de-industrialization, an influx of artists, and gentrification in the late 1990s.

Based on a promise to provide much needed rental housing and studio space for ‘low income artists’, the City of Vancouver transferred ownership of a four-storey contaminated warehouse to Rossmore Enterprises of Reliance Holdings and Properties (now the landlord with the largest amount of rental units in the precinct) which opened in 1998 as Railtown Studios at 321 Railway Street. After substantial community resistance, Vancouver City Council approved the 1995 transfer to private ownership in no small part because of the innovative nature of the promise of the building supporting one of the most extensive green roofs ever before seen in the region. The City of Vancouver only charged the developer $750,000 (‘Canadian dollars’) which in 1995 was only a fraction of its value, and with a similar amount for renovations to raw live work studios, the property is worth, two decades later, at least $20 million (Canadian dollars). In recent years, rents and rates of eviction of the original low income artist tenants have increased¬ markedly — as well as uncertainty about legal aspects of the property. This video diary from 2012 records the last year of tenant management of this community garden.

starring the following roof garden plants:

big-leaf maple, Acer macrophyllum
yarrow, Achillea millefolium
scallion, Allium fistulosum
garlic, Allium sativum var. ophioscorodon
chives, Allium schoenoprasum
celeriac, Apium graveolens var. rapaceum
boxwood, Buxus cf sempervirens
California lilac, Ceanothus cf thyrsiflorus
crocus, Crocus sativus
California poppy, Eschscholzia californica
anise & fennel, Foeniculum vulgare
cabbage, Brassica oleracea
salal, Gaultheria shallon
sunflower, Helianthus annuus
bearded iris, Iris germanica
winter jasmine, Jasminum nudiflorum
Spanish lavender, Lavandula stoechas
tiger lily, Lilium lancifolium
qexmín (W?SÁNE? -Saanich), barestem biscuitroot, Lomatium nudicaule
lupine, Lupinus bicolor & L. rivularis x L. nootkatensis)
crabapple, Malus coronaria x M. fusca
apple, Malus domestica
‘wintergreen’, is closer to Hart’s pennyroyal, Mentha cf cervina
chocolate mint, Mentha × piperita
spearmint, Mentha spicata
daffodils, Narcissus cf bulbocodium
poppy, Papaver somniferum
parsley, Petroselinum crispum
scarlet emperor runner beans, Phaseolus coccineus
cherry, Prunus cf avium
creeping buttercup, Ranunculus repens
rhubarb, Rheum rhabarbarum
gooseberry, Ribes grossularia
red currant, Ribes rubrum
rose (Eurasian cultivars), Rosa gigantea, Rosa chinensis,
Rosa multiflora
wild Pacific Coast rose, Rosa Nutkana
rosemary, Rosmarinus officinalis
raspberry, Rubus cf idaeus
black-eyed Susan, Rudbeckia hirta
sorrel, Rumex acetosa
sage, Salvia officinalis & Artemisia annua
tulip, Tulipa spp.
grape vines, Vitis spp.