floating garden island—an alternative to the prison barge

Dear Greg,

In thinking about your invitation to imagine an island for New York two things immediately came to mind. The first was the surprise I experienced when by chance I encountered Robert Smithson’s floating island being dragged down the East River as I bicycled over the Williamsburg Bridge a number of years ago. The second was my memory of the prison barge that was parked not that far further down the river that I would take note of on my daily commute over that same bridge day after day around the same time—it, thankfully, no longer occupies that space.  Both were similar in that they were islands and they were extraordinary, each on their own terms. But also the two reflected a particular passivity in that they were ‘unproductive’. The Smithson island was a self-contained state of displacement of natural fauna that simply floated by, inaccessible other than the distant sighting it offered. The prison barge sat lodged as a holding pen, the embodiment of a dismal state of waiting. For the imaginary island project I would like to propose an activated hybrid combine of the two—a floating ‘productive’ garden organized and maintained by people serving time.

What does it say about a society when a prison industrial complex has become a significant growth industry—that it was ever permitted to develop into an industrial scale! I propose an experiment based on a different form of growth, one that rejects the narrative of collective diminishment, or the punishment model, by replacing the model of growth, using ‘the garden’ as the prototype: a space where things are nurtured, tended to, where life affirming expansion becomes the goal. Functioning as an actual food producing system, but also as a metaphor for the process of tending to and caring for, this turns the familiar incarceration narrative on its head. This is not a plantation island—rather an autonomous zone of cooperative self-sustaining production. All produce harvested beyond the needs of the island complex will be gifted to the estranged community from which members of the cooperative, those detained by the system, have come—as such it is at its heart a re-entry plan.

This is a roving self-tethered island complex that follows a predetermined community based path through the waterways of the city, secured and anchored only in the evenings. I propose a modular system of barge-like structures (cost-effective recycled barges a possibility) that can be added to or subtracted from depending on circumstance and need. When stationary the structure will take the form of a circling with a central organizational core (think wagon train).  This circular arrangement can be opened to form an ‘on the move’ linear formation as the garden floats from one place to another during the day. The containers are filled with earth and planted with a variety of produce. There will be space set aside which provides basic facilities for living allocated to a central container with small separate living quarters (like on a houseboat). Communal space is provided by another container (forming the core in the circular formation), consisting of cooking facilities and a generous meeting space.

The meeting place, an open-air arena, serves as the cooperative center of the entire garden complex. Differently from the control hub of the prison panopticon this structure will model the town square as it’s center. It is a space of inclusion and participation rather than exclusion and control.  The overall structure of the floating garden island emanates out from this participatory core—circular by design, circular in intention—one might consider this a center for the spirit rather than a design of authoritarian control.

The participants are chosen through lottery (as an exploratory model initially open only for non-violent offenders). As an alternative to incarceration, participation is based on the wellbeing of the community within which each individual is responsible for his or her input. It is a community based on the agency of the individual as opposed to the punishment model of passive submission. The community will flourish proportionally to the engagement of its members. The community functions on a basis of mutual cooperation and concern; having at its core the element of trust. Breach of that trust results in that member’s return the ‘other’ model, to be replaced by the next lottery holder. Over time breaches will occur few and far between—after all who would wish to return to the cold steel cell.

This is no animal farm, nor lord of the flies.

The central barge, or hub, provides a meeting place fostering discussions on constructive models of engagement. The participants use their experience as a valuable basis, not to be discarded, but rather to be reevaluated.  The cooperative process provides a space for the imagination that can accommodate both the dissident and controversial voice or the quiet restrained voice. This is a space that affords not only for one to speak but also to listen, so that all voices are heard. There is no hierarchical structure; all are equal. As operation continues to shift the focus from a punishment model to one addressing social difficulties, the cooperative venture provides a work/study model from which to learn.

Funding for this floating participatory space is provided from the amount invested in the standard imprisonment model—each participator provides to the operating budget from the state what is customarily used for his or her imprisonment. This will provide an excess in financing; it will become clear a cooperative model of mutual engagement is a much more cost-effective model. The monies saved can be diverted into public education. One might imagine this as a win win proposition: the community gets fresh local produce, the inmates enjoy their work and feel they are re-engaged in their community in a supportive way, public schools can begin to imagine enrichment programs as funds are re-diverted into the communities most effected by the standard model of incarceration and, finally, the general public will see the floating gardens as spaces of hope as they pass on the waterways. Over time as the gardens flourish and become spectacular to behold (as the best of the community gardens in formerly devastated neighborhoods have become) the public will increasingly welcome home the people whose labor has made this possible.

Eventually open public events can be held. The barges dock and the families and people from the neighborhood board. A homegrown feast is served with entertainment provided by members of the collective. There are no weapons. There is no need for guards.  As the success of this model becomes obvious public officials will be invited to open forums to participate in discussion directed towards alternatives to the punishment model operative within our social system. Commutation of sentences and positively reinforced reintegration into the community is the desire; de-industrialization of the penal system the goal.

Ann Messner

August 2011