Floodland landscape: living initiatives

Abstract

This paper presents partial results of an interinstitutional action research project focused on the theme of urban floodplains. If the idea of floodplain, analogous to the condition of being a floodplain dweller, usually brings with it depreciative values, viewed from the perspective of the asepsis of the “High” areas of cities, this work investigates recent initiatives of cultivation and experience of the landscape in humid terrains. These are vegetable gardens and orchards invented since 2016 by residents of Vila Santa Filomena next to the Água da Grama stream, in Bauru (SP). The text focuses on the roles of field research based on aesthetic experience (BÖHME, 2010) and the poetic images that correspond to it (BACHELARD, 2013) in investigative processes directed at the landscape. As urban void without a destination, in an almost clandestine manner, a feeling of nature insinuates itself in an original way, shared by plants germinated at random, accustomed to ponds, and by the seeds and seedlings planted by people interested in cultivating them. The results obtained so far allow us to signal the relevance of bodily perception and the critical exploration of the imaginary as material and method for a more precise assessment of the symbolic values of the floodplains and their latent landscapes.