Twin Parks: The Landfill-to-park Landscape as a Canvas

04.30.14

On January 16, 2014, Freshkills Park Alliance signed a twin park agreement with Ariel Sharon Park (built on the former Hiriya landfill) in Tel Aviv. This agreement recognizes the similar challenges and opportunities that the two transformative projects face as urban landfill-to-park conversions. Both sites have sparked the interest of artists who want to use the landscape as a canvas, or a setting, for site specific projects that evoke themes of sustainability and renewal.

Artists’ proposals for the two sites, as collected in two recent publications, demonstrate a bold new vision for the human relationship with the land. The visions presented for Ariel Sharon Park in Hiriya in the Museum: Artists’ and Architects’ Proposal for the Rehabilitation of the Site range from the dystopian­, a biohazard theme park and an active trash-burning volcano, to the productive­, an ecological filtration system and a photovoltaic garden. These ideas broaden the conversation about what is possible at the transitional site and start dialogues about how the landfill, and our relationship with waste, can be transformed.

On the Freshkills Park site, the 2012 Land Art Generator Initiative sparked hundreds of visionary proposals that incorporate renewable energy into an imaginative work of art. These proposals were complied in the recently published Regenerative Infrastructures: Freshkills Park NYC, Land Art Generator Initiative. Many of the ideas, such as the 99 red balloons project, contain elements of whimsy and interactivity, but they also contain productive elements – when park visitors trigger a sensor, the balloons turn clear and reveal a photovoltaic system. In both parks, the artists’ visions provide an important role in the transition of the sites to places of opportunity.

What do you imagine at Freshkills Park? Submit your artistic proposals for the site.

Tags: Ariel Sharon Park, art, design, Freshkills Park, Land Art Generator Initiative, landfill-to-park