Lettuce Grow in the City

At the bottom of Ingwansan mountain in downtown Seoul the Muak-dong neighbourhood is home not only to people but also to edible plants in various growing spaces. This presence of edible and companion plants in a dense urban environment bears on understandings about human-plant relationships. There has been some acknowledgement that growing food locally can be part of socio-environmental justice pathways in providing walkable urban environments, urban agriculture and food waste recycling. These spatial practices also constitute social infrastructure in providing places and means of interaction, exchange and sharing practices with others. Whilst many cities have interstitial places where growing activities and the presence of edible plants can be seen, the Muak-dong network and diverse modalities of food cultivation are extraordinary. They constitute a literal pathway - exemplified by a map for an urban vegetable walk – binding together urban green space, edible plants, a fertiliser station and humans in a human-plant urban community. The visual manifestation of this plant presence in the cityscape – specifically lettuce - is the focus of this contribution which attempts to demonstrate the possibilities that food cultivation affords in the most dense and contested environments.