Urban Camo Seed Bombs - Amsterdam

Papier maché seed bombs painted to resemble common street litter - an ongoing guerrilla art project by Kasey Smith.

It all started when I traded poppies for tulips…

In December of 2022 I caught a one-way flight from California to the Netherlands and began the process of reestablishing my art practice in Europe. Being an immigrant has been a constant process of becoming. I am not Dutch, but I am a different person now than if I’d stayed in my little East Oakland loft forever. 

The person I am influences the art I make
The person I no am longer influences the art I make

As I move into my second year in the Netherlands, I wanted to revisit the Urban Camo Seed Bombs and see what this series could reveal about the city of Amsterdam. And, of course, about my developing relationship with it. What are the threads of connection between these disparate cities? And how and where does their relationship to urban space diverge?

So I present, Urban Camo Seed Bombs - Amsterdam.

For the Amsterdam seed bomb paintings I was inspired by the city’s purposeful relationship to urban space. By its density and the democratizing nature of being in proximity to… SO MUCH Amsterdam and SO MANY Amsterdammers at all times. With every square centimeter wrested from the swamps and the seas, Amsterdam doesn’t really fuck around when it comes to the how its space is used.

So in order for greenery to thrive in Amsterdam it has to be tenacious and hardy and grow with the grain of the city instead of against. Coexisting with the city’s famous pedestrian and cyclist cultures isn’t easy for a little green sprout. Which makes the ones who persevere all the more gorgeous. So for this series I chose not only common pieces of Amsterdam street trash, but common Amsterdam street flowers. These are the showy blossoms that defy both sidewalk bricks and sidewalk traffic. At home within the city’s streets, they make economical use of every crack and crevice to be found.

Each Amsterdam seed bomb is a piece of paper mache embedded with seeds and painted using watercolors to resemble common street garbage. For this series, each seed bomb contains a different flower seed — Hollyhocks and Sweet Alyssum and Snapdragons and Lobelia amongst others — a purposeful deviation from the Oakland seed bombs with contained only California Poppy Seeds. For while Oakland focused on reclamation and neglect, Amsterdam is about celebrating persistence. These flowers don’t just survive — they thrive in Amsterdam.

And so fittingly, the final “home” for these mini paintings won’t be a gallery wall or a private collection — it’ll be the streets from hence the original trash/flowers came. Allowing the seeds to fulfill their function by expanding the floral presence on Amsterdam’s streets.