Project Description
The media are full of stories about the origin and quality of our food and the impact of our food consumption on the environment and global markets. These stories cover a range of issues: pesticide use, food-borne diseases, workers’ rights, animal cruelty, over-fishing, agribusiness, GMOs, food’s carbon footprint, and environmental degradation. The fact that we have a “doomsday seed vault” in the Arctic suggests that our food sources are or could be in jeopardy. Many do not become concerned about these issues, and for others, pushing the shopping cart through the store has become an ethical challenge and practical quandary. What is in our food? Where did it come from? Who grew it? What is the impact of our purchases? The aim of this project is to focus awareness of these issues through community participation and new media.
We will trace and reveal the ingredient and packaging origins of selected foods by mapping the links in a product’s life from origins to store. We will do this by conducting audio and video interviews of people working in different capacities worldwide who are directly linked to the growing, packaging, distribution, or selling of those products. The goal is not to critique the products or processes, but rather to highlight the complexity of the issues surrounding our food consumption network. The nexus of this project is connecting with the individuals who are part of the food web. Through the process of dialogue and interviewing, we intend to give participants a sense of the importance of their roles and their connectivity to others in the global food web.
We will collaborate with a supermarket that will allow us to research one of its store brands and exhibit the final installation in multiple stores across the nation. We will research the origins of the food through web and phone research. As we map out the links, we will begin to travel to selected locations to conduct audio and video interviews of workers connected with the products. The stories that come out of the interviews will reveal the humanity and complexity of food as a vital global resource.
The project will have two major artistic outcomes:
Digital Media Database-Driven Website: Website users will be led step-by-step deeper into the complex web of connections that make the food item possible. When they click on a node, images, audio, and/or video clips will appear, giving the user an intimate portrayal of the people, environment, and systems behind that aspect of their food. The visual and interactive experience will be highly considered. In a gallery or museum context the website will be projected.
Audio and Video In-Store Installation: As supermarket customers approach the researched food item, they will hear audio recordings of the participant interviews and see a video screen showing website elements demonstrating the links that make the specific type of product possible.