LOS ANGELES — A self-described Gangsta Gardener, Ron Finley is no stranger to planting food for thought.
“This is what growing means to me,” he said, standing in front of a display he’s created on a terrace at the Hammer Museum. It includes a bathtub full of foliage, with the words “plant freedom” painted on the side. “That's what I'm growing. I'm growing freedom.”
With his garden in South LA, Finley has tapped into urban farming as fertile ground for change and that’s perhaps most evident in one room at the Hammer where art is planted like crops in neat rows. It’s a collection Finley calls Urban Weaponry, where he invited artists to transform shovels into statements.
“Weapons of mass creation instead of weapons of mass destruction,” Finley explained. “You want to change the world? Break the ground and plant something.”
There are roughly 100 works of art featured in a major exhibition at the Hammer called "Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice." When they began planning this exhibit for PST ART a few years ago, Glenn Kaino, one of the curators, said they knew they wanted to focus on climate but then in 2020, the pandemic began attacking our respiratory systems and George Floyd’s last words became a rally cry.
“We realized that we couldn't do a show about either without each other,” Kaino said. “There was an inextricable link between climate and social justice. And that's how the concept of 'Breath(e)' was born.”
“The history of art and the history of science are really about humans understanding our world and each other better,” he said. “What the Getty has done by providing resources to attack experimental problems is…what I believe art has the capacity to do, which is to create a space of abstraction where very difficult problems can be attacked and sometimes impossible solutions can be suggested.”
Although this incarnation of PST ART looks at what happens when art and science collide, Finley questions the kernel of that theme.
“I think art is science, and science is art,” he said. “I think just because…we're taught to think outside the box…why do you put us in a box in the first place? Try this. Ain't no damn box. Why don't we just think?”
And that’s what he wants people to do in his garden. Think about climate and finding new uses for old items. Think about food deserts and social injustice. Think about the victims of police violence whose names are also planted among the greenery. And not just think. He included in his garden a table and chairs, an invitation to visitors to stay awhile.
“I want them to sit down and have a conversation with each other,” he explained. "It’s communal. I want people to engage.”