The Environmental Performance Agency was founded in the winter of 2017, partly in response to the presidential election and the ongoing dismantling of the US Environmental Protection Agency by artists Catherine Grau, Ellie Irons, Andrea Haenggi and Christopher Kennedy.
During the 2017 growing season, the EPA headquarters was housed at 1067 PacificPeople in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. 1067 PacificPeople was a five-year social-ecological movement-based art project by artist and choreographer Andrea Haenggi in collaboration with writer Robert Neuwirth. During that time, the EPA used 1067 Pacific Street as a hub for site-specific movement workshops, biocultural experiments, field work, and interdisciplinary art projects that explore new ways of thinking about NYC’s urban ecologies, plant-human relationships, and to advocate for the agency of all living performers co-creating our environment, native or migrant.
The EPA is now a nomadic collective that responds site-specifically to urban ecologies around the region.
Above: Site of the EPA Headquarters, 1067 Pacific Street, Brooklyn (2017)
Urban Weeds Garden
The EPA Urban Weeds Community Garden was approximately 1900 square feet. During the 2017 season, the EPA’s team identified 41 species of urban spontaneous plants (see table below).
Above: Urban Weeds Garden Map
| Common Name | Latin Name |
| common mugwort | Artemisia vulgaris |
| downy brome | Bromus tectorum |
| japanese hops | Humulus japonicus |
| ragweed | Ambrosia artemisiifolia |
| heath aster | Symphyotrichum ericoide |
| white snakeroot | Ageratina altissima |
| dandelion | Taraxacum officinale |
| bull thistle | Cirsium vulgare |
| common chickweed | Stellaria media |
| west indian nightshade | Solanum ptychanthum |
| wormwood | Artemisia annua |
| horseweed | Conyza canadensis or sumatrensis |
| hairy bittercress | Cardamine hirsuta |
| virginia pepperweed | Lepidium virginicum |
| devils beggarticks | Bidens frondosa |
| princess tree | Paulownia tomentosa |
| mile a minute | Persicaria perfoliata |
| lambsquarters | Chenopodium album |
| annual bluegrass | Poa annua |
| annual fleabane | Erigeron annuus |
| black medic | Medicago lupulina |
| japanese knotweed | Fallopia japonica / Polygonum cuspidatum |
| ladysthumb | Persicaria lapathifolia / Polygonum persicaria l. |
| buckthorn plantain | Plantago lanceolata |
| prickly lettuce | Latuca seriola |
| sticky bedstraw | Galium aparine |
| paper mulberry | Morus papyrifera |
| virginia creeper | Parthenocissus quinquefolia |
| asiatic bittersweet | Celastrus orbiculatus |
| rhombic copperleaf | Acalypha rhomboidea |
| wild radish | Raphanus raphanistrum |
| green foxtail | Setaria viridis |
| white clover | Trifolium repens |
| Yellow woodsorrel | Oxalis stricta |
| prostrate knotweed | Polygonum aviculare |
| climbing false buckwheat | Fallopia scandens |
| mouse ear chickweed | Cerastium vulgatum |
| morning glory | Ipomoea purpurea |
| black nightshade | Solanum nigrum |
| common sow thistle | Sonchus oleraceus |
| speedwell | Veronica arvensis |