Urban Ecology

September 21, 2021

We have a tendency to negatively judge the spontaneous vegetation plants that grow without human intent. Indeed, most of the plants that I chose are dismissed as unkempt weeds. I insisted and challenged society’s blind acceptance and cultural perception, I fought and monitored to ensure the biodiversity-ecological ethics, and compensations are met at least in my work areas.

I am selecting plants that could adapt to harsh conditions. I am re-establishing edible landscapes that link ecological and Socio-Psychological aspects. I am botanizing, working with botanists and gardeners to recognize the inherent medicinal value of plants and the ecological services that we have otherwise ignored. Accordingly, Del Tredici dismisses the concept of urban ecological restoration as “really just gardening dressed up to look like ecology.” He hopes “that people start connecting the relationship between this unmanicured growth, health & wellbeing, their bodies, and their urban environment.

In my landscape design and urban interventions, I take a poetic and curious approach to walk. I see walking as an aesthetic practice. Predestined walking has an agenda to get somewhere. This is why the drift is essential, how else will we delve into the soul of a place. Sinclair describes the solitary walker as an insurgent against the contemporary world, an ambulatory time traveler. Situationist founder Guy Debord advocated for a new field of inquiry, to be known as “psychogeography,” and its effect on the emotions and the behavioral impact of urban place”. Such an idea of psychogeography gained popularity in the 1990s when artists, writers, and filmmakers such as Iain Sinclair and Patrick Keiller began using the idea to create works based on exploring locations by walking. 1955). In these urban wanderings / experimental walks, I immerse in the sights, sounds, and smells and subconsciously making navigational decisions based on subtle variations and nuances in urbanscape, typologies, architecture. It’s a glimpse into the complex ecology of cities and perspectives on social structures, and our choices and reflections.

As a romantic stroller, I wander and discover the next abandoned space or overgrown vacant lot. In a digitally navigable world, it is more important than ever to walk off the beaten track and uncover the vegetated urban pockets that are not digitally mapped on GPS and navigational applications. It is an opportunity for despondent urbanites to actively engage with and reconsider their surroundings as a shifting landscape that can be reshaped by their own perceptions. I wish Kathmandu was a walkable city where people are eager to walk and find forgotten tales, mythopoetic, the hidden meanings, and synchroni- city.

Through a process of walking, photographing, drawing, I study and analyze the patterns, behaviors, and seasonal shifts of the spontaneous urban plants propagating in derelict places. People do wonder what I am taking doing, as I bend down by the side of the pavement to photograph these grass breaking through concrete. It’s humbling to see, them thriving in tough conditions. I disseminate my urban exploration through posting Profiles of Spontaneous Urban Plants via Instagram to offers insight into the city’s underappreciated plant life and spark interest in spontaneous urban flora.  I invite others to add to the index by uploading photos – hash-tagged #spontaneousurbanplants.  It’s time to seed this into our collective discourse. I am starting a discourse between ecologists, designers, artists, and the general public to question the societal perceptions, blind acceptance, and the stigmas that surround them.

We need to understand the overlooked aspects as well as the botanical dimensions of spontaneous urban flora that provide substantive ecological benefits, mitigating stormwater and for  improving phytoremediation.

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