Gremlin Guide V2

Making effort and care visible at the Food Forest.

Festival Beach Food Forest is one of my favorite places in Austin. The flourishing nonhuman species found in the space, alongside the wonderful community that maintains it, make it an incredible third space that serves as a balm, both in physical relief of the Texas heat and as a reminder that the world is not doomed; communities carry tremendous power, and their actions can bring about positive change in unprecedented ways.

Gremlin Guide is a continuation of Kenny Ly’s project from 2022, A Gremlin's Guide to UT. In this iteration, the Gremlins are applied to the context of the Food Forest, exploring how we may use them to encourage volunteers to understand the impact of their work in a more profound way and highlighting these efforts to casual or new visitors of the Food Forest.

This is my second project for Festival Beach Food Forest, the first being the Microclimate Citizen Science Experience.

This project aims to create a guide for an interactive experience that helps our audience familiarize themselves with Austin’s unique ecological place and supports the mission of Festival Beach Food Forest. In the process, they should reimagine themselves as stewards and participants of Austin’s ecology.

In this project, I am collaborating with Kenny Ly. They are the original creator of the Gremlins.

Objective & Team

Research

When researching this project, we focused on the elements that set Festival Beach Food Forest apart from other parklands in Austin and Texas. We knew we wanted to create an interactive experience in a physical format, like a zine.

We were interested in the chores and maintenance duties that took place the Food Forest. After some research and a conversation with Karen Luzius, land steward and coordinator of the Plant Circle, we found that chores fulfilled one or both of the following purposes:

  • Aesthetics: Tasks that are primarily done to maintain the aesthetic appeal of the Food Forest. Permaculture can be messy at times, but, FBFF is on public park land owned by the city of Austin, therefore must be maintained by their standards.

  • Nourishment: Tasks that are done to support the ecosystems of the Food Forest.