In 1982, a wheat field sprang up in Manhattan, literally at the foot of the Twin Towers

The territory of a former rubbish dump, which was standing vacant at the time, had been allocated for the creation of an art installation. But instead of a sculpture park, the artist Agnes Denes chose to sow a hectare of land with wheat.

With several assistants, Agnes cleared the required area of refuse, after which the plot was levelled and covered with soil left over from the digging of the foundation pit for the World Trade Center.

The action was meant to draw attention to excessive consumption, which had completely transformed people's system of values. A field of grain on land worth more than 4 billion dollars also called attention to world hunger, to the extravagance of those in power, to humanity's misplaced priorities and, of course, to problems of the environment.

In the end, the half-tonne of wheat harvested from this field went to an international exhibition devoted to the problems of hunger, from which people could take the seeds away to different countries, while the numerous photographs of the field itself remain as a reminder of one of the most incredible sights New York has ever seen.