LOCAL KIDS: WINNIPEG GOATSCAPING
[PARK]ing Day Winnipeg People's Choice Award
Summer 2017
Individual Project
![RE[FUEL]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/234c5c_8d23e6981f8a49958eec6ab818ffafc0~mv2_d_5184_3456_s_4_2.jpg/v1/fill/w_980,h_653,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/234c5c_8d23e6981f8a49958eec6ab818ffafc0~mv2_d_5184_3456_s_4_2.jpg)
They’re GMO-free, Organic, Pesticide-free, and Locally sourced. They kill weeds and unwanted plants. They emit zero fossil fuel emissions. They’re goats, and they’re coming to Winnipeg.
Local Kids wants to simultaneously introduce and normalize a landscape maintenance practice that is slowly spreading across Canada known as Goatscaping. In many other cities (Kamloops, Edmonton, and Calgary specifically) goats are being used as a low-impact and highly effective method for handling invasive plants and weeds in public space.
They are the ideal gardeners, as their selective grazing practices allow particular species of weeds to be targeted over native and planned plantings. By transforming a vacant parking spot to a lively public space and bringing a few goats from a local petting farm, this project will encourage passersby to stop, pet, and potentially feed weeds to these Local Kids, starting a dialogue between the some of the biggest influences on the prairie landscape: designers, agricultural practices, public spaces and their users, and often tedious landscape maintenance.
The dialogues should prompt some questions: Why is this a strange sight to us? Why can’t this be done like in other Canadian cities? What’s wrong with embracing change like this? Why are goats so cute? Local Kids - Winnipeg Goatscaping aims to deliver a not-so-new idea in a fun, engaging, and impactful way.