Permaganic is a non-profit-operated community garden begun in 2010 by two artists from University of Cincinnati’s College of DAAP. Permaganic offers locals access to organic produce, education, and jobs and training for local neighborhood youth and extra produce grown on site benefits local food kitchens and the needy. The garden includes fruit trees, native plants, vegetables, berries and labyrinths and is beloved by local residents, many without their own backyards, who depend on recreation spaces that don’t require payment or invitation. Several neighborhood kids and teens were hard at work in the garden during the Prayer Flags for Cincinnati installation cutting aromatic mint and basil, weeding and planting.

Prayer Flags for Cincinnati was a collaborative project featuring the perspectives and input of local Cincinnati residents which inspired both the themes and images of the flags created as well as their locations of installation. The homemade flags are modeled after Tibetan prayer flags, traditionally hung around homes, villages, and sacred sites and are believed to ward off evil spirits and bring luck to those touched by the winds that pass through the flags. Instead of using the traditional dyed cottons and mass woodblock printing, the flags are made out of the scraps of everyday life, including clothing, doilies, handkerchiefs, napkins, tablecloths, pillowcases and curtains. Images of Cincinnati’s triumphs, the dreams of its residents and most importantly, the toughest of its struggles are hand-painted onto each fabric flag. These experiences are literalized through hand-painted imagery, emerging from the cloth as either prideful adornment or through the form of a stain on the surface of the fabric.