The SDUK broadsheet series takes aim at a broad range of concerns—and this issue, GRAFTING, explores how we come to know, define, and interact with nature, where we see its boundaries and identify its needs, and how we understand its entanglement with culture. Following on the origins of The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and in the spirit of publishing, questioning, and problematizing “useful knowledge,” we recognize our readers as curious people who may pick up this publication with certain questions already in mind.

Perhaps you are asking, “Where do nature and the city intersect? What does this mean for urbanism?” We suggest you begin with Shannon Mattern’s “How to Graft a City” (p. 5); Morris Lum’s photographic project on Cooksville, a Mississauga neighbourhood built on intercultural relationships and subject to both urban development and climatic events (p. 6); or The Climate Change Project’s study of natural resource management (p. 25).

We often wonder, “How can art and culture contribute to an understanding of nature-culture entanglement?” If you wonder this too, Amanda Boetzkes’s essay on grafting and contemporary art (p. 18), and Kika Thorne’s artist project Tree Permit TP-2016-00332 Applicant John Ross… (p. 16) are both excellent points of departure for this exploration…