Imagined Glassboro Mural Project: Evolution of Agriculture in Glassboro

Mural Proposal

Visiting Summit City Farms is a different experience for everyone. For many, it’s a place to gather with other people in the community, maybe for a five-year reunion or private party. For others, it’s become more of a tourist attraction by offering wine tasting nights and fall festivals. But for locals like Ester DegEnnio, who grew on on the farm, Summit has carries a lot of history. In our interview, Ester described that farm, now run by her first cousin Louis, has been classified as preserved historical land meaning there are certain regulations about who and what can be built nearby in order to preserve their plot. Ester says the town in Glassboro used to be orchards and its all been converted to housing becasue of the way the boro and the university collaborated to evolved into a college town. The farm itself is evolving too. Throughout the year the switch which crops they grow based on what’s in season. Farmers also have to make decisions on what will grow best based on how the weather is expected to be for that year. For Summit, this means growing peaches in the summer, apples in the fall and mushrooms in the winter. The eco-footprint of the farm can be felt on a local and global scale. For example, Ester sais that maybe years ago farmers warned city planners in Glassboro that building on low land orchards would cause flooding that the orchards would otherwise absorb. As a result of the planners deciding to build on orchards, the buildings regularly flood. The state of farming in Glassboro had evolved immensely over the past fifty years. My mural depicts this transition through images from the past and present. I want the mural to show how agriculture has become relevant in new ways. 

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