In the not-so-far-off future, the land will be gray and lifeless, begging for the refreshment of vegetation. Sagina procumbens, or Pearlwort, can resist a post-apocalyptic landscape: it is a first plan to re-emerge from depleted soil. In New York City, Pearlwort lives unnoticed within the cracks of sidewalks and relies on water splash and foot traffic to self-propagate. The post-apocalyptic reveals opportunities in unexpected places and to re-assign value to forgotten or hidden things. ‘Pearl’ was found in the corners of stone benches of Frederick Douglass Circle, a monument on the Northwest corner of Central Park. Douglass was an emancipated slave, suffragist, and pivotal abolitionist.
The project evolves from Black on Both Sides by C. Riley Snorton, where “blackness” and “transness” are dynamic conditions of being and becoming. Pearl embodies “transitiveness” by adapting and expanding in reaction to the environment. We propose universal techniques to landscape Pearl’s urban growth. Pearl will transform the pavement as it expands through the joints, physically and figuratively connecting communities. Through Pearl we could redefine the meaning of urban floor; no longer is it a conveyor belt of pedestrian efficiency, but as a watercolored ground landscape for evolving, shifting, emerging, and becoming.
