[-empyre-] No Free Lunch

[Stefani Bardin]

Hi Amanda + Hernani!

My time at Shu Lea’s residency in the Catskills had a profound impact on me personally as well as my art and pedagogical practices.  At the time it was connected to a farm run by Tovey Halleck + Madalyn Warren and they would deliver fresh produce every day (it was the middle of summer) and that is what we ate.  Plus the eggs, bread meat and fish (all local) they got by trading their fruits and vegetables.  Part of the residency gig was to work on the farm a few days.  The transformation for me happened in the immersion.  I thought I knew a lot about food - and I did - mostly through books - but being present for the slaughtering of an animal (then eating it) and harvesting your own food and then immediately eating it surprised the hell out of me in terms adding a layer of understanding that before just seemed obvious.  But it’s not.  Until you’re in it.  

Renate’s wonderful (and very personal) post from March 6th illuminates, very explicitly how we can both benefit from and enjoy our relationship to food but can also sometimes forget its power as a tool for communication, expression and it some instances transformation.  Our map is a small gesture to bring more people into the layers of the food system and their role in it and perhaps a way to point them toward work that is actually merging these relationships in the most amazing ways.

Sam Van Aken’s Tree of 40 Fruit <http://www.treeof40fruit.com/> and Mary Mattingly’s Swale <http://www.swaleny.org/html/images.html> and Marina Zurkow’s Outside the Work: A Tasting of Hydrocarbons and Geologic Time <http://www.chron.com/entertainment/arts-theater/article/Artist-brings-complex-issues-to-the-table-5358323.php> are three of my favorite examples of art projects  that “feed” the people the work.  Literally.  Taste is such a transformative tool.  Much more powerful and impactful than words and images and numbers and graphs.  And as Mary says in her post from yesterday that “ food forests eventually care for themselves and you, in an undeniable way.” 

I’ve been teaching Food Studies for years now and one thing that is still a bit of a hurdle (even for people devoting their studies to food and food systems) is the way in which food and art and food and design merge.  There is a lot of debate around what is Food Art and Food Design and I’m not necessarily interested in that debate as much as I’m interested in how using the aesthetic and transformative modalities of art on and with food (especially through EATING) can impact the current problems within our food system that affect us all.

Cheers,

Stefani

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
www.stefanibardin.net

NYU + Parsons
stefanib at nyu.edu
stefani at newschool.edu

> On Mar 11, 2016, at 2:56 PM, Amanda McDonald Crowley <amandamcdc at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> 
> On Mar 8, 2016, at 7:26 PM, hrn>refarm wrote:
> 
>> 
>> sorry my delay but it’s spring time here and 24h per day are not enough..
>> I’m a designer, portuguese but I live in cambrils, cataluña. I’ve started the refarmthecity.org project 8 years ago and since then I’ve been focus my work on research the urban agriculture universe: seeds, soil, low and high open technologies, sensors, urban material resources aka trash and building together workshops.
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> thanks Hernani!
> 
> What I find interesting is that here you're describing on the scale of your refarmthecity project, some of the same issues that Stefani and Marina were raising with their Food and the City mapping project. The issues are so complex and layered, that you only achieve interesting and useful results when you deploy complex systems thinking to the issues you're trying to address.
> 
> soil, seeds, compost, water, high tech, low tech, (no tech), sensors, compositing, salvaging materials from the urban waste stream (I'm sure Mary will talk to this too, when she finds time to contribute!!), building, community development, science, art, citizen action ...
> 
> Perhaps some of you might like to talk about how you build, nurture, and develop the kinds of complex communities of experts and amateurs you need to realize these such layered projects and conversations? And why is that important to how we think about food and art specifically?
> 
> I recall when both you and Stefani did residencies at Eyebeam, you both spent a lot of time working on developing collaborative partnerships. How did that happen and what were the successes and failures? And both of you spent time both upstate on Shu Lea Cheang's project farm at Andes, as well as time in New York City doing workshops and building out your ideas. What was the benefit of having both the city and the farm as locations to do your work and research?
> 
> Amanda
> 
> 
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