In recent years, city walls have become fertile artistic ground — quite literally — for a new wave of graffiti art that uses live plants instead of paint. Many such artists borrow their secretive practices from tagger tradition, jealously guarding their walls and rarely revealing their locations. But as in the spray-can graffiti world, many also accept commissions from public or private organizations to spruce up the streetscape.
Last week, the Brooklyn-based artist Edina Tokodi installed moss graffiti in the shapes of a penguin and a polar bear — two species threatened by climate change — on walls in Gowanus. A decade ago, Tokodi started Mosstika Urban Greenery, a collective of eco-minded street artists, in her native Hungary, when she moved from the countryside to Budapest to attend art school. She missed the meditative quality of green spaces, and started covering existing structures with moss. “City dwellers often have no relation to animals or greenery,” Tokodi says. “If we don’t cultivate our knowledge about nature, our life becomes unworthy, too.” Since 2008, she has been tagging subway windows and interiors with moss and wheatgrass stencils.
Pratt Institute Intensive English Program 