Located in the grounds of an inner-city church in Sydney is a flourishing allotment akin to a miniature Garden of Eden.

As part of the Museum of Contemporary Art exhibition In the Balance: Art for a Changing World, Victoria-based artist collective The Artist as Family has created and installed a garden as a living work of art in the grounds of St Michael’s Church in Surry Hills.  

The artwork, aptly named Food Forest, is based on theories of permaculture and aims to provide locally grown, readily available fruit, vegetables, nuts and herbs to the community.

Local residents are invited to tend and add to the garden. In return they are free to help themselves to the produce, whether it be fresh mulberries in spring, juicy peaches in summer or citrus throughout winter.

Patrick Jones, Meg Ulman and eight-year-old Zephyr Ogden Jones comprise The Artist as Family, and they are bridging the gap between community, art, conservation and activism.

The group believe that many of the world’s environmental problems can be solved by localising food sources, and they want their art to be an example of that.

“Food has to be within walking distance and that’s definitely possible in urban areas. We need to adapt our diets to what’s available locally and what’s in season,” Jones says.

Citing Sydney’s sprawling 220-hectare Centennial Park, Jones says councils and governments should be utilising these areas rather than just pouring resources into maintaining ornamental plants.

“It seems bizarre and a bit indulgent in this day and age,” he says. “In parks and any available space, urban food production can be created. Because most people live in the cities, food through urban forests and parks is the future.”



The Museum of Contemporary Art commissioned the work after seeing a previous exhibition where the group spent 17 days as artists-in-residence at Newcastle’s Lock-up Cultural Centre.

Gathering non-compostable waste, mainly food and drink packaging, from along the coastline, they used it to build an installation.

The point of critique for the Newcastle installation – society’s reliance upon the importation of resources – helped them conceptualise their current exhibition based on the idea that “food has to be within walking distance, and composting is the key to this future society”.

They want the Surry Hills allotment to become an example of how much food can be grown in a small area.

“It’s the idea that the community will retain it and have access to the church land to tend to the plants and take what they need,” Ulman says.

The allotment can be divided horizontally into three sections: the upper canopy, citrus middle and the outer ring.

The upper canopy consists of a mulberry tree, and Spanish and Indian chestnuts, all of which are deciduous, to allow light through to the smaller plants in winter.

The citrus middle is home to smaller fruit and nut trees such as oranges, lemons, feijoas, almonds and guavas. Cadigal plants in this zone attract symbiotic insects to the area.

The outer ring, dubbed the green pharmacy, consists of perennials, herbs and smaller plants such as rhubarb and rosemary – all of which were donated by local residents on a community plant-in day.

The majority of the food Jones and Ulman eat is grown on their quarter-acre section a few hours out of Melbourne.

They trade excess with neighbours, buying anything else they need from local farmers’ markets.

They’re realistic, and know it’s not possible for all inner-city inhabitants to grow all their own food.

“If people can change five to 10 per cent to growing their own, then that’s a big start. People need to start making the transition now. Those who leave it to the last minute will have left it too late,” Ulman says.

They believe we on earth need to drastically reduce our reliance on oil before the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which time it is theorised that the rate of production will enter terminal decline.

“All the food we currently eat is dripping in oil. From the machinery used to transport it, to the tractors used in the fields right down to the packaging. If there is a groundswell of people making changes, we’ll be so much better prepared,” Ulman says.

“I think humans will always adapt to any changes in our environment, but right now we’re sitting ducks,” says Jones. “Society is obsessed with wealth generation and this equates to waste.”

The Artist as Family believe the answer lies in localising food sources, eating in season and expanding the range of foods we eat.

“Organic food has become a class issue due to the high cost, but good local organic food should be available for everyone,” Jones says.

“In you average supermarkets there are only about 20 food sources that cover thousands of products but there are actually thousands more food sources that we could be utilising.”



No more than a flimsy piece of shade cloth protects the garden from passing vandals or thieves, but Ulman doesn’t see it as a problem.

“That’s the drama of life. It’s the idea of people and the community sharing. The church is keeping an eye on it and there are neighbours across the road who are interested in the project. It’s a bit of an experiment, so we will have to wait and see.”



Ulman hopes the work will bring people onboard and help bring them together.

“From a local perspective, it’s to get people back into that zone of foraging. Picking not packaging,” Ulman says.

“I like to think of it as ‘social warming’. We want to create something dynamic and positive and hopefully that’s enough encouragement for people to make a change.”

In the Balance: Art for a Changing World, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, August 21-October 31.