[-empyre-] catching up, resistance and revolution

[Amanda McDonald Crowley]

Hi Renate,

Thanks for recognizing the factors of a "networked culture" in the food nostalgia exhibition. It is true that I see all these connections as well, even if not all of the artists in this particular exhibition work with digital culture, the work was all layered - drawing on popular cultural references, brand recognition, bodies, memory, nostalgia, and playfulness. They artists asked me, at least and I hope our audiences, to think about our relationship to our colonial pasts, feminist thinking, cultural diversity, and marketing culture as it relates to our food systems. A layered and networked conversation to be sure.

I'd love to hear what others on the list are working on in this regard. We touched so lightly on urban mapping issues on week one, it would be super to have other examples of successful layered mapping projects or strategies more generally.

Mary and Shu Lea have indeed introduced wonderful projects that speak directly to the notion of "resistance" that was so hotly discussed on -empyre- last month as it related to borders. I would suggest that the contested zones of food is surely one of the most important issues of our times. 

Shu Lea's bleak future of tasteless food is not futuristic after all. The food depots she describes in LOCATION ID: HOME, are not so far removed from the shelves of the Wegman's Grocery store that you point to - where even so called "organic food" is being subsumed into the big industrial agricultural enterprise.

Mary's practical goal of growing food and giving it away is a gesture towards a utopian future, and she's not alone. 

Futurefarmers http://www.futurefarmers.com/ deconstruct systems such as food policies, public transportation and rural farming networks to visualize and understand their intrinsic logics, and like Mary and Shu Lea, their work often provides a playful entry point and tools for participants to gain insight into deeper fields of inquiry- not only to imagine, but to participate in and initiate change in the places we live. 

Fallen Fruit's  <http://fallenfruit.org/> Urban Fruit Trails - growing food trees in public spaces - have as a goal the support an urban experience that can be cared for, cultivated and shared by the public.

All of these projects, like Stefani and Marina's mapping project, have public participation and engagement at their very core: they are not works of art to admired at a distance. They are projects which are fundamentally about public engagement and empowerment.

Mary, yesterday, finished with a quote from one of my favourite authors and activists, Vandana Shiva, so I will will respond with another: "The time has come to reclaim the stolen harvest and celebrate the growing and giving of good food as the highest gift and the most revolutionary act."

Amanda






On Mar 14, 2016, at 10:39 AM, Renate Terese Ferro wrote:

> Funny Amanda that you apologize for the gestural move away from new media in the recent exhibition “food nostalgia” at radiator gallery.   -empyre in fact is all about networked culture and I find at the heart of “food nostalgia” all of the factors of the networks of food as it relates not only to large American agribusiness, distribution, marketing as well as memory and affect.  What your curatorial project does is critically deconstruct this network.  How powerful and complex this  relationship is.  It is difficult for me to go to our large grocery store these days.  At the entrance of our local Wegman’s Grocery store are shelves of “organic” corn based and soy based oils, flours, and pasta products in family sized colossal  packages all branded with the Wegman family name.  Sugar is of course the other culprit in big business food production.
> 
> ...

> Congratulations on the exhibition.  But getting back to the interesting juxta-postion between the networks of Hernani, Stefani and Marina’s urban mapping networks with the large agri-business of the mid-west.  The interesting question you pose Amanda about where art fits into this I think might be worth spending some time discussing.  I am thinking here of Ricardo Dominguez’ reminder that our job in these projects and interventions is to insert “resistance.”  Yes this work is wonderfully poetic, sensory and sensual, beautiful, and healthful while at the same time it provides real solutions for real problems.  Simultaneously  these projects provide a platform for thinking through a “resistance” to the politics of agri-business as well as our own relationship to food  and food production. 

--
Amanda McDonald Crowley 
Cultural Worker / Curator
http://publicartaction.net

@amandamcdc

food nostalgia is currently on view at Radiator Gallery until March 13

-emprye- currently moderating thematic email listserv conversation on the topic #ArtTechFood through March 2016