Future Gardening in Amsterdam: a Gardeners’ Assembly with readings, workshops, food testing and soil exchange at Zone2Source on May 30-31
Join us at Amstel Park in Amsterdam for a special Soil Assembly outdoor weekend where we will share and engage in soil, gardening, food, darkness, underground and storytelling. Zone2Source is organizing Future Gardening, a weekend event across their two artist gardens, run by artist collectives de Onkruidenier and Genomic Gastronomy.
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May 30, 19:30 – 23:00 > NOCTURNAL ECOLOGIES
Location: Shadow Garden (Belgium pavillion)
On the night before the full moon, we gather in the Shadow Garden cared for and hosted by artist collective the Onkruidenier for a program dedicated to nocturnal ecologies. What happens in the garden after dark? How does the moon influence the soil and the life it sustains?
Participation is free of charge. Check the programme and register here.
The evening begins with a collective reading led by Anne Diestelkamp from The Perennial Reading Group. As the sun sets, we will read texts by Anaïs Tondeur, Germain Meulemans, and Beatrice Zerbato, exploring the complex relationships between soil and atmosphere, darkness and the underground. The reading is followed by a a food intervention by Chen Zou, who engages participants in her artistic research on darkness and the invisible underground. As night falls, Jonmar van Vlijmen (de Onkruidenier) and Anne Diestelkamp will invite participants into a discussion about the garden at night and share their explorations on nocturnal gardening. This conversation gradually transitions into a hands-on workshop on night pollination. Together, we will develop a map of night-blooming plants and sources of nectar for moths and other nocturnal pollinators.
Program:
19:30 Tea and arrival
19:45–20:45 Collective reading on soil and darkness with Anne Diestelkamp
20:45–21:15 Food intervention and research sharing about the invisibility of the underground by Chen Zhou
21:15–22:30 Discussion about nocturnal gardening and workshop on night pollination with Anne Diestelkamp & Jonmar van Vlijmen (de Onkruidenier)
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May 31, 11:00–17:00 > GARDENERS’ ASSEMBLY & EXTREME SALAD WORLD
The Gardeners’ Assembly begins with a workshop led by the Center for Genomic Gastronomy in its artist garden, where participants explore the technologies and ecologies of human food systems. The workshop, titled “Soil & Taste Test”—which includes renaming the garden “Extreme Salad World”—concludes with a community lunch. Next, we head to the Shadow Garden, where gardeners from artist gardens, community gardens, and activist gardens gather to share their stories, knowledge, and experiences.Participation is free. Check the programme and register here.
Program:
11:00–13:00 workshop “Extreme Salad World: Soil & Taste Test”
Location: Genomic Gastronomy Garden (former seal enclosure, near het Glazen Huis)
In this workshop, hosted by Zack Denfield and Cathrine Kramer from the Center for Genomic Gastronomy we will harvest and taste dozens of plants from the Extreme Salad Garden. Using slow observation and custom software, we will document the late-spring edible biodiversity and the garden’s current soil cycles. Each plant we meet interacts with the soil in different ways, and collectively they are managed within the garden in order to regenerate soil. This workshop is a way to collaboratively generate an image of complex plant and soil interactions and taste the wild and cultivated plants on site. At the conclusion of the workshop we will have assembled: a plant herbarium, a digital map of the site and a very biodiverse salad which we will serve as part of a lunch we will share together.
Launch of Extreme Salad World, a biodiversity-maximizing kitchen garden that is unreasonable packed with as many raw, edible plant species as can possibly fit into a small urban park. Inspired by near-Arctic gardener Stephen Barstow’s legendary 200+ ingredient salads, the garden rejects monoculture and efficiency in favor of vegetal hedonism: an overload of perennial and unconventional plants eaten raw, turning the city into a site of extreme cultivation and flavor.
13:00 – 14:30 Foodshed Soil Picnic
The communal lunch will be composed of different ingredients from the Amsterdam foodshed, served on a European soil map tablecloth and arranged by distance: from the hyperlocal (foraged on site), the regional (North Holland), to the bioregional (Atlantic mixed forests of Europe), all the way to the continental. Late May offers an ideal moment to gather the first fresh harvests of spring while reflecting on the broader supply chains that shape our foodshed throughout the seasons.
14:30–17:00 2nd Garderners’ Assembly
Location: in front of the Shadow Garden (Belgian Pavilion)
We will gather for the second Gardeners’ Assembly (the 1st took place late 2024) at Zone2Source: a meeting for Amsterdam-based gardeners and garden artists to exchange knowledge, practices and stories.
The Gardeners’ Assembly brings together artists, community and activist gardeners alike—those who work with soil and wish to exchange experiences with like-minded practitioners. During the afternoon, we will share stories from a wide range of gardens: nomadic, community, artist-run, urban, activist, rooftop, and more. Participants are invited to bring something – a tool, a seed, a leave – and a handful of soil from their garden as a starting point for storytelling. Together, we will discuss the challenges, practices, and experiences of gardening—as both community work and artistic research—and conclude with a circle discussion exploring the future of this emerging gardening network.
How to attend the Gardeners’ Assembly:
– Everyone interested in gardening and its relation to (artistic) research is welcome
– Contributors are asked to prepare a short story (max. 3 minutes) about their garden
– Please bring a soil sample and an object from your garden to support your story
– To attend, please sign up via the provided link
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About the participants
Collective De Onkruidenier investigates historical, cultural and potential transformations of nature and its possibilities to evolve humans. They do fieldwork – often in conjunction with audiences – collecting plants, the stories and histories associated with them. As ecosystem futurists, they speculate on the relationship between humans and (urban) nature, both above and below sea level. An important role is played here by questioning systems that are usually taken for granted. In the development of their work, interactions with the public and experts such as farmers, residents and scientists create new stories.
The Center for Genomic Gastronomy is an artist-led think tank that examines the biotechnologies and biodiversity of human food systems. Their mission is to map food controversies, prototype alternative culinary futures and imagine a more just, biodiverse & beautiful food system. The Center presents its research through public lectures, research publications, meals and exhibitions. Since 2010, the Center has conducted research and exhibited in Europe, Asia and North America. They collaborate with scientists, chefs, hackers and farmers.
Anne Diestelkamp is a cultural programmer, artistic researcher, and gardener. The programs she develops emerge from collaboration with neighborhoods, communities, and artists and makers from different disciplines. Her research revolves around gardening, feminist ecologies, trans-corporeality, herbalism, and the history of witchcraft, much of which is grounded in her own work with plants at the community garden I Can Change the World With My Two Hands in Amsterdam.
Chen Zhou is a PhD candidate at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) at the University of Amsterdam. Her doctoral research traces the circulation of ecological food between rural and urban China, examining how the countryside is imagined through farming, the distribution of food, and eating practices. For Chen, food is not only a subject of research but also an artistic medium for storytelling and knowledge sharing.
The Gardeners’ Assembly is organised by Zone2Source as part of the 2026 regional Soil Assembly series and is supported by Soil Tribes and funded by the European Union.
SoilTribes (101157729) is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the European Research Executive Agency (REA) can be held responsible for them.
