MCLAREN PARK EARTH DAY with Peter Brastow, Laura Castellini, Josiah Clark, Chris Giorni, Hakan Guven, Linda Harte, Dylan Hayes, Charlotte Hill, Rachel Kesel, Franco Mancini, Kathy Miller and Liam O’Brien (April 22, 2007)

This Earth Day, a collaborative team of naturalists, artists, teachers and activists transformed San Francisco's John McLaren Park into an outdoor ecological classroom and festival space. What resulted from our common effort was a day full of activities and events including habitat restoration projects and tree plantings, local music, an earth day library installation, nature walks, interactive artworks, and earth-centered presentations of all kinds for children and adults.


Earth Day Library

by Prelinger Library
The Prelinger Library installs an Earth Day reading table for browsing. The installation concentrates on the State of California as a contested site of nature preservation, with historic literature about San Francisco, the San Francisco Bay, and California History. The installation will also present an assembly of paperback ecology titles that are clustered around the development of the first Earth Day in 1970.

The Black Factory and Other Good Works

by William Pope.L
On exhibit at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts from Mar 17 – Jul 8, 2007
141 Demands, one of Pope.L’s Other Good Works, will be at McLaren Park for Earth Day from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.
The 141 Demands for a Better World are designed for moving into community sites and inciting activism. During McLaren Park Earth Day, teams made up of 2-3 people engage with passersby and the public in a performative and lively way, sparking conversation that asks people to state their demands for a better world, region, community or neighborhood. The 141 Demands team puts the passersby in touch with organizations that do what they say they would like to see done, so that they can either draw on them as a resource or give their own time/money to support them. All the conversations are broadcast on Neighborhood Public Radio.


Play a Poem for the Earth

by Amber Hasselbring
Amber reads her poem/dance score, Play a Poem For the Earth, with sound design by Kristin Miltner. The reading invites participants to actively engage their bodies in a playful relationship with one another, while exploring the McLaren Park environment.


Storyteller

by Nicole Krauch
Nicole tells The Lorax by Dr. Seuss and other stories aloud for children and adults.


Native Plant Nursery Installation
by Greg Gaar

Photography by Karle Fried


Contributors not pictured:

Eduardo Aguliera, Blue Swamis, Bread Me Out, Eco Sustainability Roadshow, Flacos Unique Vegetarian Mexican Food, Steven Gary, Green Dog Walks, Rick Hardin, Interface Oblivion, Kids in Parks, Gale Mead, Mokai, Precita Eyes Youth Mural, Quixote, Rennea, Sick with It, Student Conservation Association, Tree Frog Treks, Wilderness Arts and Literacy Collaborative, Curt Yagi



Special Thanks to Sam Bower from greenmuseum.org For your support and for helping me with the article about organizing McLaren Park Earth Day posted online at greenmuseum.org.

Thank you Liam O'Brien for drawings and design expertise.