Godmother of the Parklet, Artist Bonnie Ora Sherk Celebrated in Retrospective

KQED's Forum

KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 31 January 2024

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Bonnie Ora Sherk began her career as a landscape painter, but then realized she wanted to be in the landscape herself. From the nucleus of that idea, her 1970 installation “Portable Park,” a popup farm complete with sod, trees, and farm animals situated under a San Francisco freeway overpass, was born. As she observed, “Freeways are beautiful, but they need to be softened. Why use them just for cars?” Sherk, who died in 2021, spent her career transforming “dead spaces” into lived experiences like gardens, farms, and trails, all meant to engage audiences by showing them the wonders of the overlooked world around them. Today she is considered the godmother of urban reinvention, gardens, and the parklet. We’ll talk about a new retrospective of her work with curators and artists who have been inspired by her. Guests: Tere Almaguer, environmental justice organizer, Poder - Almaguer works with Hummingbird Farms, a seven-acre urban farm in San Francisco Frank Smigiel, director of arts programming and partnerships, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture; former curator, SF MOMA - Smigiel helped bring the Bonnie Ora Sherk retrospective to Fort Mason Tanya Zimbardo, curator, "Bonnie Ora Sherk: Life Frames Since 1970" John Bela, urbanist; artist - Bela has created a garden space in conjunction with the Bonnie Ora Sherk retrospective at Fort Mason. Bela is also a partner at Urban Field Studio, a Bay Area urban design collective Rae Alexandra, staff writer, KQED Arts & Culture; creator and author, "Rebel Girls from Bay Area History" series Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Support for Kikiweedy Podcasts comes from Rancho La Puerta, a wellness resort on 4,000 acres located 45 minutes from downtown San Diego.
0:08.7	Established in 1940, Rancho LaPuerta offers adult summer camp-like vacations for individuals and groups.
0:15.0	Rancho LePuerta.com.
0:16.7	Support for Forum comes from Broadway S.F. presenting Parade, the musical revival based on a true story.
0:24.5	From three-time Tony-winning composer Jason Robert Brown comes the story of Leo and Lucille Frank,
0:30.7	a newlywed Jewish couple struggling to make a life in Georgia.
0:34.8	When Leo is accused of an unspeakable crime, it propels them into an unimaginable
0:40.2	test of faith, humanity, justice, and devotion. The riveting and gloriously hopeful parade
0:47.2	plays the Orpheum Theater for three weeks only, May 20th through June 8th. Tickets on sale now
0:54.0	at Broadwaysf.com.
0:57.6	From KQED.
0:59.1	From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
1:14.6	Bonnie Ora Shirk began her career as a landscape painter, but then realized she wanted to be in the landscape herself.
1:21.6	Her 1970 installation portable park was a pop-up farm complete with sod, trees, and cute animals,
1:29.3	situated under a San Francisco freeway overpass.
1:32.3	Shirk spent her career transforming dead urban spaces into lived experiences, a holistic practice
1:38.3	she saw as connecting people to the natural world and each other.
1:41.3	There's a new retrospective of her work up at Fort Mason,
1:44.8	and it is glorious. We'll talk about Shirk's work, life, and tremendous local impact right after
1:50.9	this news.
2:00.6	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. As you walk into the Fort Mason Gallery that's hosting
2:07.3	Bonnie O'Roura Shirk's new retrospective, you're greeted by a glorious glimpse of 1970s, San Francisco.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from KQED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of KQED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.