140 Ideas and One Garden

I recently picked up a book called 140 Artists' Ideas for Planet Earth...and it's exactly what the title suggests. A beautifully erratic, experimental, often wild compilation of thoughts from artists, activists, visionaries, and makers who live outside the usual boundaries.

The back cover sums it up perfectly..."Through 140 drawings, thought experiments, recipes, activist instructions, gardening ideas, insurgences and personal revolutions..." This isn’t a manifesto. It’s a mosaic. And in a world obsessed with hot takes and headlines, it was refreshing to engage with something so open ended and unpredictable.

Some ideas were chaotic. Some calm. Some made me smile. Some made no sense at all. But I think that’s the point. This book isn’t about answers...it’s about entry points. A sideways thought that grows over time.

One piece that really stayed with me was by Precious Okoyomon called Untitled (2019);

Write down your fears on a white square piece of rice paper
Fold the paper into a tiny triangle
Set it on fire
Take the ash outside
Put it in dirt
Plant a flower in the dirt (pansies, cosmos, snapdragons)
Repeat until you have a garden

It’s part ritual, part art, part activism. And to me it captures the spirit of the whole book...transformation through intention. A small act that becomes a gesture. A gesture that becomes a symbol. A symbol that eventually becomes change.

I know I’ll keep dipping back into this book...not just for ideas but for an alternative mindset.