Feast & Famine/Art & Activism

Johanna Riera

Professor. Cacoilo

Activist, Interlop Pranksters

April 17, 2019

Feast & Famine/Art & Activism

        The healthy consumption of food in efforts to achieve a well balanced life is often overlooked by the majority of the population.  Along with selecting healthy food, it is also important to become aware of the environmental impacts of food production and food justice. The Feast & Famine exhibition explores food as a social, political, and bodily occurrence. This specific exhibition considers food as a commodity. In addition it considers the relationship to global economics and geopolitics. Overall, the works bring awareness about various issues revolving food productions and operations from an artistic perspective. The many projects successfully bring the audience's attention to matters that are often overlooked. 

          I have decided to select the the project "Beework: Sunflower Pollen" by Christopher Russell and  "Thin" by Lauren Greenfiel. Beework: Sunflower Pollen specifically brings awareness of the importance of bees within the ecosystem. As pollinators, bees significantly contribute to interconnected ecosystems which in return allow several species to co-exist. In addition, they are also a great food source. They produce honey which is widely consumed. Artist, Christopher Russell, successfully depicts beautiful sculptures of both bee hives and bees in efforts to bring awareness of such an animal. This is especially important given that honey bees are going extinct due to excessive use of pesticides in crops. This brings to question the correctness of our food production system. This project can directly relate with the Free Range Grain project in the Interventionists, which intend to: "We hope to contribute to an idea of public science by focusing on issues (such as food production) that are of direct interest to people, and so contribute to making the meaning of scientific initiatives immediate and concrete, as opposed to the vague abstractions they tend to be" (Interventionists 85). By producing beautiful sculptures of bees, it raises the question of  the importance of scientific initiatives in efforts to better the system of food production so that bees would not suffer throughout the process. 

         This bee pollen  project also relates with my planned project of creating a blog platform as a source for women's empowerment. I believe this is the case because bees are typically known to be very small which leads to the common misconception that they are not that important. However bees play a tremendous role in the environmental chain as it influences so many species including ourselves. Similarly, women are often overlooked in the both the STEM field and overall life. They are often seen as "beauty" objects rather than intellectual sources that are just as capable of doing any tasks as any male could do. 

             The other project that stood out to be from the exhibition was "Thin" by Lauren Greenfiel. According to the Institute Artist website " One in seven women have eating disorders, anorexia ranks as the third most-common chronic illness amongst adolescent females ". For this very reason the aforementioned project aims to provide a series of photographs taken from a documentary where actual victims express their stories behind eating disorders. In the photographs the artist aims to compare their before and after pictures when the patients had undergone treatment. This project is relevant to my semester project as it touches upon the same notion that women "should be a certain way". This is quite the opposite as a women should be able to be, act, and eat whatever they desire. The lack of fairness leads to women believing they should be a certain way leadings to their fear of pursuing their career goals. In the case of Greenfield's piece, women often believe that they should have a certain body type leading girls to be more prone to such a mental disorder, anorexia. In the book "Seeing Power" by John Berger it is stated, "The desire to reach beyond one's comfort zone and move a cross categories of identity is crucially important"(John Berge 142). This ties back to the semester project and this specific project as it mentioned that it is important to go out of one's comfort zone which directly impacts our tendency to gear towards societal standards. This Thin project does an excellent job by depicting many stories by using patients during their most moments in efforts to address the issue of "fitting" into a certain body type. 

        To conclude, when analysing the content in this exhibition it is important to look at the bigger picture of situations in efforts to truly understand the meaning behind the different works. In the book "Seeing Power" Thompson states, " To read a work one must also read the underlying infrastructure to make legible its aesthetic and political composition" (Thompson) This holds true when analyzing art pieces as they have deep meaning behind them. Once such meanings are deciphered one can truly appreciate the importance behind them.  

Beepollen by Christopher Russell

Pollen by Christopher Russell

Christopher Russell different sculptures 

Thin Project by Lauren Greenfiel

Work Cited

Sholette, Gregory, and Nato Thompson. The Interventionists: Users Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life ; MASS MoCA, 2004.

Thompson, Nato. Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the 21st Century. Melville House, 2015.