Like so many other parts of the northeast, Hartford is home to a number of now defunct factories like the Veeder-Root site on Sargent Street. Sitting in a residential neighborhood, the site has undergone an engineered environmental remediation. While the soil is cleaner, it is not clean. It’s still contaminated with a with VOCs (volatile organic compounds), heavy metals, and petroleum residue. These chemicals filter through the soil and once they reach the groundwater and are moved slowly, and inexorably to the Connecticut River, a little over a mile to the east. Once in the river, they are carried to the Long Island Sound.  

“The Sunflower Project”, working with data provided by the Ct Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, and the students of 'Our Piece of the Pie', will design a site-specific phyto-remediation garden and forest on the Veeder-Root site. We will work with the high school students of ‘Our Piece of the Pie’ located in the Veeder-Root building, teaching them the history, theory and practice of using plants to clean up environmental problems simply, safely, and effectively with both classroom and hands-on site work. In addition, we’ll be working with the artisans of the on-site woodworking workshop, ‘FreshStart’, who will be commissioned to build beautiful arbor and benches for local people to enjoy.

Along Sargent Street, the grassy area by the sidewalk, will be electro-etched copper plates on wooden plinths built by the woodshop student-artists of “Our Piece of the Pie”. The video/recording student-artists will be creating a video production of the manufacturing history and the remediation work on the site. This video will be shared with the Asylum Hill/Clay Arsenal neighbors, the artisans of “Fresh Start”, and the families of the OPP students during a public block party to celebrate the neighborhood, the garden and achievement of the OPP students. The party will feature food from local restaurants and music from a local band.

The project at Veeder place will serve as a site of education about the condition of post-industrial land that many people are unaware of, while providing a generative intersection of environment, art, and community for many years to come.