Karen Washington

The Essentials Food justice, food access, and community gardening sit at the center of Karen Washington’s practice. Raised in the Jacob Riis Houses on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, she came to food work without prior growing experience and took the work on directly: “I had no experience growing food, and I took a chance.” The organizing side of the work is built into the craft here. Washington says her training taught her public speaking, organizing people, and engaging politicians—skills that matter when gardens are used as civic infrastructure, not decoration. Her line on scale is plain: “One garden at a time can’t fight the city, but a coalition of gardens can have a voice.”

In Their Words “My training there taught me how to be a public speaker and gave me the tools of organizing people and engaging politicians.” “I hated tomatoes—but when I bit into one of my own, I was hooked: I said, “I am going to grow everything.”