Gardens in Unexpected Places

murketing:

“In collaboration with shoe designer Masaya Kushino, Sputniko! is currently developing the work “Healing Fukushima (Nanohana Heels)”, a pair of shoes that plant rapeseeds (Nanohana) into soil through mechanical high-heels.

Using the heels, rapeseeds are automatically planted as the user walks. The piece is currently in its work-in-progress phase, and is exhibited from March 11th to April 16th, 2012 at Omotesando Gyre’s Hyper Archipelago exhibition, along with works from exhibitors such as architects Arata Isozaki and Ryuji Fujimura. The final music and video for the project are planned to be released in Summer 2012.

“Experiments by Belarusian scientists have shown that rapeseed blossoms absorb radioactive substances such as Caesium-137 and Strontium-90 from soil. These radionuclides are stored in the blossoms’ stalks and seed coats, but not in the seeds themselves- which is fortunate because the seeds can be turned into Canola oil, the most popular source for biodiesel. This discovery led, in the 2000s, to the planting of rapeseeds by the Ukraine and Belarus governments in over 50,000 hectares of Chernobyl-affected land, in a move to revive the area’s agriculture industry which had been wiped out by the 1986 nuclear accident….”

More here.

I would so love to write a profile of Sputniko.

(via Design Fiction: Sputniko, “Healing Fukushima Nanohana Heels” | Beyond The Beyond | Wired.com)