As the urban condition expands, incorporating more and more natural habitats, wildness moves into the city. Increasing human mobility drags with it the mobility of all other organisms – causing a planetary osmosis where all species meet in new and unprecedented conditions that would not be permitted by the natural topography. This new urban nature is developing very different ways of survival than the primeval forest landscapes Moving from “savage”, unstructured free connections, they must survive in a human-made order, to thrive in what is the planetary habitat of the future.

The project Where the wild things grow is a collective artistic research on the urban life of non-human organisms. It calls for a rethinking of the subversive potential of returning nature to the urban landscape, beyond the domesticated, designed versions of the park and garden. Paraphrasing the title of the famous children’s book “Where the wild things are” by Maurice Sendak, about a small boy’s wandering into the world of “wildness” through the safety of the dream state, is an invitation to explore the unknown wilderness through the familiar condition of the urban dense city center.

The program spans across  two spaces in Patisia, the Fix and Drakopoulou parks, both of which are cases of reoccupation by nature, as at the location of the former was, the building of the FIX ice-brewery factory, while in the place of the second was the Drakopoulos textile factory complex. The program includes artistic interventions, a soundwalk, workshops, a screening of the film NATURA URBANA and discussions with theorists and artists.

Participants | Rebecca Agnes, Campus Novel (Ino Varvariti, Yannis Delagrammatikas,Yannis Sinioroglou), Nikos Doulos, Juliette Brederode, Jelly Hogendorp, Eva van der Zand, Eirene Efstathiou, Matthew Gandy, Mariela Nestora, Maria Ikonomopoulou, Giorgos Papadatos, Yiannis Papadopoulos, Vangelis Savvas, Georges Salameh, Panos Sklavenitis, Fani Sofologi

The project Where the wild things grow is supported by NEON through its annual Grants Scheme.