Amber Hasselbring is a San Francisco artist focused on exploring ecological relationships. Since 2004, she has produced collaborative, project-based works that involve participation by invited and circumstantial audiences. Two such artworks include Art on BART: An Artist Guided Tour of the San Francisco Bay Area Urban Ecosystem (2005), and the Angel Island Art & Ecology Festival (2006). These daylong works incorporated contributions by local artists, scientists, and educators. The following year, Hasselbring co-organized Nature in the City’s McLaren Park Earth Day. During the festival, she read aloud a poetic set of instructions intended to familiarize participants with the natural McLaren Park environment.

Hasselbring’s Mission Greenbelt Project (2007-present) explores themes of gentrification, education, and urban ecology through performances and garden building efforts in San Francisco. Hasselbring coordinated Mission Greenbelt Campaign Headquarters (winter 2007) for the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery. The headquarters was set up as a gallery installation of street posters, maps, photography, audio-visual artworks, and bilingual take-away information packets. To attract attention, Hasselbring installed a temporary California native plant garden in front of the gallery along Van Ness Avenue. Events included a campaign kick-off, sidewalk landscaping workshops, public school visits, native plant sales, and tours of the proposed Mission Greenbelt.

By harnessing community creativity to construct a contiguous wildlife corridor, the Mission Greenbelt Project fosters urban environmental stewardship. Sidewalk, container, and rooftop gardens planted with California native plants turn sidewalks into habitats for birds and insects. Sidewalk gardens also allow rainwater to reach the soil. This relieves San Francisco’s overburdened water treatment system, which during heavy rains overflows into the bay and ocean.

Hasselbring’s ongoing earthworks project samples surrounding ecosystems to design city sidewalk gardens, backyards, and open spaces to establish a contiguous native plant, insect and bird corridor. This work reconnects San Francisco residents within the Mission Creek Watershed to the natural resources of the city.

amber@art-eco.org
415-786-4957