Retro Inspiration :: Victory Gardening

(Australian poster from 1943)

 Once the call-to-action of governments during World War ll, victory gardening is making a comeback.  Victory gardens in suburbia were created in Australia, Britain and the USA during WW ll as a solution to food shortages during the war.

In January 1942 the Prime Minister, John Curtin, launched “Dig for Victory”, a publicity campaign urging householders throughout Australia to grow their own vegetables as a contribution to the war effort. (source: Australian War Memorial)

From this grew the Green Armies - communities banding together through community gardening projects and The Australia Women’s Land Army – where women took over work on farms while men were at war.

Poster from 2011: The Victory Garden of Tomorrow, Joe Wirtheim

 Here we are in 2011 and these concepts are at the forefront of urban communities all over again. Community gardens; backyard farming, a chook coop out the back, composting... we are returning to tried-and-true solutions. Today the impetus is no longer war as such, but economic downturn and a growing awareness of the environmental and health impacts from the industrialised food “industry” that grew after the war (so eloquently explained in Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and illustrated in the subsequent film,  Food Inc.)

When I was looking up Victory Gardens, I came across the artwork of US designer,  Joe Wirtheim. His project, The Victory Garden of Tomorrow, is a self-commissioned poster campaign designed to: “...channel the bold energy of historical poster propaganda” and is  “...committed to civic innovation and social progress-- better food, better gardens, better cities. It is artful advocacy for the modern homefront.”

Joe says: “I believe the spirit and skills of that old generation lay within us today. We simply need to re-deploy ourselves if we are to shape our uncertain destiny.”

Wise words, and I love, love, love his retro-inspired posters. I found them in Joe’s Etsy shop, here.

Tell me, folks, are you gardening for Victory?! 

x

Megan

p.s If you are in Canberra over the next couple of weeks and lucky enough to visit the Floriade festival you will see a recreation of a Victory Garden, filled with plants and vegetables grown by Australian families during World War II.  I would love to be visiting Floriade, it’s on my list of things to get to one of these years.