Urban farm: A file picture of Kebun-Kebun Bangsar in Kuala Lumpur.
PETALING JAYA: The appeal of Kuala Lumpur’s Kebun-Kebun Bangsar (KKB) has now spread beyond the country after it was featured as one of the exhibits at Germany’s Vitra Design Museum.
The exhibition called Garden Futures: Designing with Nature, highlights six unique gardens from around the world, with KKB being the sole example from South-East Asia.
The other five are Liao Garden in China’s Yangjiang, Kincaid’s Garden at Vermont, Jamaica, the United Kingdom’s Prospect Cottage Garden in Dungeness, Rio de Janeiro’s Sítio Roberto Burle Marx, and The Gardens of Marqueyssac in Vézac, France.
Garden Futures selected these gardens based on their cutting-edge exploration as sites for promising futures premised upon concepts of sustainability and social inclusion, whether by using contemporary or speculative gardening concepts.
These experimentations have resulted in some extraordinary oases for urban folk in search of respite, meaning or both.
The Vitra Design Museum is a privately-owned museum for design in Weil am Rhein that was founded in 1989 by Rolf Fehlbaum, and is supported by an independent private foundation.
The museum has evolved to be among the world’s leading museums of design that dedicates itself to the research and presentation of design, and scrutinises the intricate relationship between design and architecture, art and everyday culture.
In its citation for the gardens it selected, the curator said: “Today, issues of climate change, ecology, food insecurity and social justice pervade our daily reality. Do we need new concepts of the garden and of gardening? If yes, which ones, and who could we learn from?”
The Kebun-Kebun Bangsar exhibit is accompanied by an eight-minute video produced by Natasha Kraal, where KKB co-founder Ng Sek San was interviewed.
Established in 2016 on a strip of land classified as TNB reserve land, KKB regularly produces vegetables that are given to refugee and other underprivileged groups, other than serving as an urban oasis and learning ground for city dwellers.
In response to its latest achievement, Ng told The Star that being chosen to be profiled this way is indeed a huge honour for KKB’s sponsors and volunteers as the Vitra Design Museum is a very reputable organisation.
“It is a very encouraging recognition and acknowledgement for their contributions, and it is also an important reminder that we are doing the right thing, especially in the context of constant complaints and eviction notices over the last six years.
“We hope the little that we have achieved so far will snowball into something a lot bigger, and that many more will join us to improve the wellbeing of city folk in the years to come,” he said.
Recently, KKB volunteers have been asked to help out at another budding urban farm in Kuala Lumpur’s Kampung Baru so that its model can be replicated.
Garden Futures will be exhibited at the museum until Oct 1, before moving to Rotterdam’s Het Nieuwe Instituut from November 2024 until March 2025.
