People Growing Together
By Director Claudia Romano
Photos from snippets of Claudia Romano's documentary
Writing by Andrew Bassuk
A short documentary about urban gardening in Cambridge and Boston, MA
Claudia Romano, a master’s student studying digital media design at the Harvard Extension School presents a documentary that explores the connection of urban gardening in the day to day lives of people living in the Boston and Cambridge areas of Massachusetts. She conducts a variety of interviews with community gardeners, nonprofit leaders, along with the Community Garden Coordinator of Cambridge Kate Irlean (pictured in the upper right corner), Steve Nutter an Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning alumni who is now the Director of Green Cambridge, and Professor Julian Agyeman about the way that gardens in areas with limited green space better the lives of those around them.
This documentary also showcases how these gardens invite a diverse group to participate in the use of these greenspaces as places for increasing sustainability, socializing, and implementing food justice. Through this documentary, Romano takes the time to educate viewers on “the importance of nurturing green spaces for both individuals and the communities they serve” in hopes of showing the audience that spaces for urban gardens in densely populated areas can be an important tool for social change as well as the wellness of individuals and communities alike. We are happy to present a pre-release showing of this documentary which is linked below.