June 3 – June 20 | BRAC – The Economy of Food Group Exhibition
Michele Brody, Nicolás Dumit Estévez, Martine Fougeron, Jonathan Blaustein, Alberto Bursztyn & Project 59, Andrea Callard, Patricia Cazorla & Nancy Saleme, Chee Wang Ng
Above: Martine Fougeron, from “Project: Bronx Trades”
June 3 – June 20 | Opening Reception – Wednesday, June 3, 6-9pm
305 East 140th Street, Bronx, NY.
The Bronx River Art Center (BRAC) is pleased to announce The Economy of Food, the third exhibition in a two-year series of ten, entitled Food Systems, Surroundings & Sensibilities, which will run through 2016. The exhibition opens with a reception on Wednesday June 3rd, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at BRAC’s temporary gallery space in Mott Haven, the Bronx.
The exhibition analyzes the economics of the food system, the multifaceted operation for sustaining our lives. The exhibition addresses the food system’s major components: the economy of food production, the economy of trade and food distribution, the economy of food consumption and the economy of recycling the system’s aftermath.
The Economy of Food is an inescapable fact that affects us on an everyday basis. Artists participating in the exhibition are responding to this universal issue with installations, photography, performance and video works. They trace, underline, critique or mock issues of: corporate vs. sustainable farming, undocumented immigrants and child labor in food production, local food distribution in the Bronx; the new geopolitics of food; multinational food culture; commercial and creative recycling of food waste and packaging; and attempts to balance low budgets while providing nutrition and feeding our families in “the hungriest borough in NYC”.
Curated by Irina Danilova, The Economy of Food is part of BRAC’s larger curatorial effort to draw attention to food as a creative medium, muse and indicator of culture; and to highlight social and political issues, especially those impacting the Bronx community.
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More about the exhibitions series:
This exhibition series is designed to shine light on the fact that although The Bronx is at the heart of New York City’s food system (the Bronx Terminal Produce Market supplies fruits and vegetables to supermarkets and restaurants across the city, feeding millions of its inhabitants). Ironically, many parts of the borough are identified as “food deserts.” This paradox engenders questions that our project will seek to answer: How are Bronx residents affected by available food choices? What are the challenges for a 21st-century city to feed all of its population? How are ideas of sustainability, livability and healthy environments being explored -and how should they be implemented for the future of our community? What roles can artists, community organizations and local activists play within these scenarios? The conceptual framework of Food: Systems, Surroundings & Sensibilities addresses these perspectives in order to identify inspiring and achievable solutions through the cross-fertilization of artists with our community’s diverse groups of inhabitants and within its specific and distinctive landscape.
This project is supported in part with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, Art Works; The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; and The New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and The New York State Legislature. Related education and public programs are supported, in part, by Con Edison, the 42nd Street Development Corporation, and the generosity of our patrons. The Bronx River Art Center expresses its appreciation for the support of The City of New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., Councilmember Ritchie Torres, and members of the Council’s Bronx Delegation.
