As an urban agriculture project, the campaign will create vital gathering places, build community connections, and improve community health. As a conceptual art project, the Boston Tree Party engages with metaphor and symbolism, and playfully reimagines patriotic and political language, imagery, and forms of association. Like the Boston Tea Party, the Boston Tree Party is a symbolic political act.
The project takes a stand for universal access to fresh, healthy food; for greening our cities; cleaning our air and waterways; reducing our city’s carbon footprint; creating habitat for urban wildlife; and for protecting the biodiversity and heritage of our food. Collectively, these apple trees are a decentralized public urban orchard that crosses social, economic, political, and geographic boundaries. Apple trees must be planted in heterogeneous pairs (two different varieties of apples must be planted together) in order to cross-pollinate and bear fruit. Like these trees, we too are interdependent and need to work across divisions to effectively address the pressing social and environmental issues we face. The Boston Tree Party aims to bring the city together in support of community and environmental health, and represents a commitment to the well-being of future generations in Greater Boston. The apple has a long and deep connection to the history of Boston. The first apple orchard in the American Colonies was planted by William Blackstone on Beacon Hill in 1623. The oldest variety of apple in the United States, the Roxbury Russet, was developed in Roxbury in the 1630s. The Boston Tree Party will celebrate and recontextualize this history and make Boston a city of apples once again.
