Sketchup Handcart
Sketchup Handcart
Original photograph of the handcart from California
Original photograph of the handcart from California
A map showing the ancient open field system at Laxton at the Disclosures II
A map showing the ancient open field system at Laxton at the Disclosures II
Artists at Disclosures II, the Laxton strip field system is visible in the top left of the picture
Artists at Disclosures II, the Laxton strip field system is visible in the top left of the picture

Sketchup Handcart

UHC have designed and rendered a new agricultural vehicle in Sketchup for use in Google Earth in urban gardening environments and activist guerrilla gardening projects.

The design is based on descriptions and images of real equipment used today in communal farming, specifically on a cart used by Californian Schools' city farm projects.

The piece has an eye on the Middle Ages and a Britain pre-enclosure, our agrarian past and collective farming. It is partly inspired by our ongoing interest in the enclosures, Levellers and in particular the 'True Leveller', Gerrard Winstanley. Predominantly however, it is an experiment in tactically infiltrating the 3D warehouse/google earth project for gentle radical environmental activism - ensuring the virtual representation of our world contains subversive toys which promote sustainability or radical agriculture and guerrilla gardening.

Sketchup Handcart was commissioned by Nottingham Contemporary and Gasworks for the Disclosures II event in Laxton, Nottinghamshire. Laxton is the last substantial surviving example of the medieval open field system of farming in England.