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South Central Los Angeles
Ron Finley, a designer, artist, activist, humanitarian, Gangsta Gardener, and a “bad motherfucker”, is the founder of The Ron Finley Project, a non-profit in South Central L.A. focused on putting humanity back into being a human. The Ron Finley Project is an ever-evolving green space in South Central (which includes an Olympic-sized pool that has been reimagined into part of the garden and also serves as his office), that works towards transforming food deserts to food sanctuaries around the world. South Central LA has been called a food desert, where affordable fresh food is difficult to find, and his garden, in contrast, as an “edible oasis”.
Ron has inspired many to think about food and growing food differently – with a Ted Talk viewed by over five million, one of MasterClass’s most popular courses, product collaborations with the Gap, Taylorstitch, and LA’s Everybody World – he’s a former fashion designer himself – and several appearances at major art festivals.
Yet, he’s a reluctant, if prolific, leader – he’ll never tell you he has the answers, he’ll never tell you that you should be doing things his way. And that makes him even more worthy of attention: his leadership is not only in what he does, but how he does it. His impact comes through an intoxicating sense that this man is passionate, that he’s thought about what might really matter and he's reshaped his life around it. As we contemplate a world at a breaking point, his willingness to do that is a lesson for us all.
N6:
What I'm first curious about – and it relates in part to the power of this project, and creativity in general – is an ability to see something different in the spaces around you, to imagine something different, which is what you did. I just wanted to start you off speaking about where you feel that comes from in you.
R:
It comes from not living in a box. It comes from being dyslexic. It comes from me seeing and thinking differently than these motherfuckers want you to. Fuck your standardized education. Education isn’t one size fits all because it don't, it didn't fit me. I had to think differently to figure shit out.
And going other places and seeing beauty, coming back to my neighborhood and realizing there wasn't that much beauty, and then you come to realize it's by design. If you see blight, ugly, violent, that's what you think is normal. If that's all you've ever seen, if that becomes your normal. Fuck that. I want beauty to be my normal.
N6:
Do you feel like that is also something that you're battling – a lie that we've been told about how easy it is, or how available it is for us to do what you did and rethink what is around us?
R:
I’m not battling shit. It's not a lie that we've been told. It's a lie that they had us live. It's not a lie. It's the reality. I mean, we built this shit here, the whole agriculture, the whole growing food, but is it akin to slavery? It's not. It's actually freedom. We just haven't been taught that because when we look at it, we look down on it. We look down on people that grow food. They're lesser people. But farmers are superheroes. They feed your ass. You know what I'm saying?
It's just what I'm doing is changing the looks to change the way people see it.
I've asked people, when I was at Google, how many people know what these numbers mean that's on all your fruits and vegetables, the little bar code. Nobody at this talk I did knew.
N6:
No, I don't know either.
R:
See. I was going to ask you. No. Why not? It's on every piece of food that you eat. The shitty part is, you should know because it's telling you that this food is going to kill your ass. That's what it's telling you. Is this shit organic? Is it commercially grown? Is it GMO? Four, nine, eight, something. A five digit code starting with a 9 is organically grown, a four digit code is conventionally grown which contains pesticides, and a five digit code starting with an 8 means it’s a GMO.
N6:
Do you think it's just about, like, a consciousness?
R:
Hell yes. A consciousness. We're not trained to value food. Let's start there. Because if we did, we would be fighting and boycotting the bullshit that they have in our stores all day.
N6:
What do you think it would take to overcome this? Is it an incremental thing? Or, are we waiting for “a moment”?
R:
Nobody is waiting for nothing. I just told you, at Google, nobody knew. These are supposed to be some of the most brilliant motherfuckers in the world. Nobody knew what those labels were. What does it take? Yes, it's going to take an awakening. It's going to take a consciousness shift. It's going to take these corporations, shutting some of them down, or at least boycotting them, and asking them, “Yo, is your kid eating this shit?”
N6:
I think it was in your Ted Talk where you said, “if kids grow kale, they'll eat kale” which I think is a really interesting metaphor actually, which is like—
R:
It's not a metaphor though [chuckles].
N6:
Well, I think it also operates as a metaphor, for how transformative it can be to participate – what you work for, you value.
R:
That's all I talk about. You can't eat no damn diamonds. The problem is we have not been trained to value ourselves.
We have an intrinsic value and when I talk to kids in schools that's what I tell them. There's nothing more valuable than you. There's nothing more precious. There's nothing more worthy, there's nothing more beautiful than you with nothing. Things don’t give you value.
How do we make gardening sexy? And not like it's for these people that are “downtrodden” and “poor” – farmers make a hell of a lot of money, but we don't view it like that. Especially being of color, we view the soil as – a lot of my folks don't, but most of them do – we don't view the soil as having any reverence because they associate it with that shit called, what was it called? Slavery. Yes, that shit.
N6:
I'm curious. In other realms outside of gardening, how do you change big narratives like that?
R:
Now you got me, you asked me some shit like I'm Yoda or some shit.
N6:
I don't know, you've been very good at creating mental space for people to feel a sense of agency over something where they hadn’t before. I think that's something that we need to feel in other dimensions of our lives and I'm just trying to absorb, trying to figure out, what I can translate from your experience here.
R:
People tell me, “You found your passion.” I'm like, which one? I'm like, this ain't my passion. “Oh, you do it with passion.” I say everything I do is with passion. If you're passionate, everything you do, you do it with passion — you eat, you sleep, you have sex, you drive, you talk, you build. To find your passion, first of all, you got to find yourself and stop being somebody else and stop trying to be somebody you can't.
It's like we've been trained to wear clothes a certain way and everything else to walk, to talk, to model – like, in business, this is how you dress. If you're in this job, you're supposed to wear this.
That let me know – and especially in fashion – I knew what to wear to make you think a certain thing. All that shit is the costume. That's all it is. I got my purple power tie. It's a fucking tie, it doesn't give you no power. That's how people don't realize who they are because they've been playing these roles most of their life.
N6:
I'm also really interested in some of the other projects you've done – you have some clothing out now with the Gap, and you did some great stuff with Everybody World here in LA. What were your aspirations in those projects, particularly the Gap, which is such an enormous brand?
R:
The goal was to align yourself with a brand that you have some respect for and make a nice product. That's what I did with most of the collabs that I've done.
N6:
I think it's something that you seem to do very well. It's like understanding aesthetics, the power of that to carry a message also. People will probably choose those shirts at the Gap because they like the way they look, with the politics behind them coming after.
R:
Exactly. Well, that's part of it. As an artist, you want people to see what's in your head – even though this is plants, I'm an artist. I was in one of the biggest graffiti shows in the country, Beyond the Streets, and I had a big ass garden – because, I said, this is my graffiti. You're sitting in my graffiti.
Now I'm part of Pacific Standard Time in 2024, which is one of the biggest art shows that they do in LA – the Getty, LACMA and The Hammer together.
N6:
Oh, amazing. Wow. You'll be doing a garden, obviously.
R:
Maybe, maybe not. Who knows?
N6:
Then also, I still see this duality between the creativity that you employ, connecting people to the food that they're eating, for example. And, then there's lots of creativity that's used as smoke and mirrors.
I think people within “the creative community”, people whose work has a lot to do with creating brands or experiences, maybe aren't so aware of the power that they hold or the responsibility that they hold.
R:
Who said it's their responsibility?
N6:
I don't know. Whose responsibility is it then?
R:
I don't know. Is what I do my responsibility? Who knighted me and gave me a scepter, "This is now your responsibility." That's the thing. People can choose what they choose to do, and it could be to the good and it could be to the bad. It just depends. I'm not telling people, "Hey, we all need to get out, follow me."
N6:
Why not?
R:
Why would I? I'm not some Messiah. I don't want to be THE person. I don't know it all.
N6:
As much as you're not asking people to follow you, you do really public things. A Ted Talk is obviously also an enormous stage to share a message. It's something that you do want to share.
R:
MasterClass might be bigger for me.
N6:
How's the response been to that?
R:
How's it been? I have one of the number one MasterClasses of 2021.
N6:
What does that mean for you?
R:
It means that I'm being heard. It means that people do want to change. It means that people believe that I have something to say. Via the emails, some people have literally changed their lives by listening to me, and that's a blessing and a curse.
N6:
Why is it a curse?
R:
Because people expect you to— they have a certain expectation of you, and then they start seeing and viewing you differently, and people start looking. It attracts other things that you really don't want in your life. Vultures. [Chuckles]
People say “You're going to be doing this for the rest of your life.” No, I'm not. The only thing I'm doing for the rest of my life is breathing. I'm not doing this shit for the rest of my life. There’s too much other stuff to do. There’s too many other things to change.
The percent of North Six jobs that are carbon offset.
