"jamestown park" photo of kelsey ericson by william hessian
Did you ever think about how society seems to cage in nature? In Minneapolis, and most larger towns all nature is controlled and confined to selected sections of our cities. It seems to me like public and private parks are simply jail cells for nature. Surrounded by the man made buildings, concrete and roads. Shadowed by skyscrapers and telephone poles.
Nature responds to the temperature, the animals, and the climate by growing in new locations or spreading its seeds...only to find mankind rip it up or clip its advances. While I absolutely love parks and the ability to have them, I think they are in dire need for freedom.
In my opinion parks need to be designated areas where nature roams free. Leave the weeds and the prickly bushes (they are there for a reason) and enjoy the architecture of nature. Trees, rocks, bugs, water and bushes are still the most amazing things on this planet if you ask me.
Anyone else want to start a "FREE THE PARKS" campaign?
For those of you wondering why I would consider myself a semi expert on parks, I will tell you. I am currently on a 5 week art tour in which I am visiting over 60 parks across the country. From Minnesota to California and back. I am visiting the parks in order to hide miniature artworks which are free treasures for the public to find. I personally love parks, I enjoy visiting them, keeping them clean and simply walking through them. After seeing so many over these past few years I cannot help thinking that our suffocation of nature into confined park areas seems counter productive. Yes, it is nice for us, but nature is struggling at every chance to survive and grow and adapt.
This whole concept reminds me of the controversial endangered species act, where on one hand we should not interfere in nature's natural selection process, yet if a certain percentage of a species grows too few, we step in and protect this animal from dying off. By protecting the animal, we alter their food supply, living conditions, location, predetorial animals....which affects millions of other animals. It seems to be easily debateable from both points of view.
The sad thing, is that even the parks we DO have are under used and under valued. The only park people care about these days is the cyber park on the internet. A sea of advertisements, spam and blogs.
Why are you reading this, when you can be outside in a beautiful park?
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