Food Justice Celebration at Santa Fe Art Institute

“The interpretations of food justice can be complex and nuanced, but the concept is simple and direct: justice for all in the food system, whether producers, farmworkers, processors, workers, eaters, or communities. Integral to food justice is also respect for the systems that support how and where the food is grown— an ethic of place regarding the land, the air, the water, the planet, the animals and the environment. The groups that embrace food justice vary in agendas, constituencies and focus, but all share a commitment to the definition we originally provided: to achieve equality and fairness in relation to food system impacts and a different more just and sustainable way for food to be grown, produced, made accessible and eaten.” 

  From Food Justice by Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi

The sharing of food and ideas.

This past year the Santa Fe Art Institute with the guidance of director Sanjit Sethi has brought it's artist-residency program into a deep inquiry into the notion of Food Justice. This was the first in a planned annual theme-based residency program and it brought over forty artists, from all over the world, together with local activists, farmers and lovers of home grown food to creatively investigate the idea of Food Justice as it relates to New Mexico.

 “ From July 2014 through June 2015, SFAI encourages creative minds to come together and examine the territory of food justice. Together, we will ask how can we use diverse creative practices to confront inherent social, cultural and economic problems in our food system? Further, how can we bring together insights from creative fields, environmental sciences, sustainable agriculture, critical theory, and food studies to have local, national, and international impact?” 

Alexis Elton and Brett Ellison of Jubilee farms with SeedBroadcaster Chloe

When Sanjit first came to Santa Fe he reached out to the community to explore what might be a fitting theme to kick off this initiative. The economic disparities, the lack of water and access to land, the difficulties for our native  communities to have adequate access to fresh food and the food desert of Cerrillos Road were issues many locals talked about. However there are also the long-standing traditional agricultural practices that are still tightly held in Northern New Mexico. It was this juxtaposition that Sanjit felt could be explored so the Food Justice theme emerged.

Desert by Street Food Institute.

The artists were selected through an application process where they were asked to create a proposal that would address food inadequacies in New Mexico and how they might engage with community partners. It was a rigorous selection process based on the impact of the proposal as much as the individual artistic practice. As part of this theme-based year SFAI partnered with the communities along the Española Valley and many of the artists-in-resident’s created projects in collaboration with those communities. They worked closely with cultural advisers such as Roger Montoya and Todd Lopez. Artists such as Holly Schmidt, Christie Green, Yoko Inoue, and Alexis Elton created projects with students at the La Tierra Montessori School that animated discussions and actions that were far reaching into the community at large.

Installation by Christie Green addressing issues of accessibility to healthy food

 On June 20th SFAI held a celebration and culminating event to highlight the creative projects that have emerged through out this year. The community was invited to a free lunch catered by Street Food Institute. SFI works with young adults and emerging culinary students and practitioners to develop the business and technical skills to realize their entrepreneurial dreams. The students begin with hands-on training at SFI Food Trucks, where they learn how to make delicious and healthy food using sustainable business practices. The event featured artists, open studios, organizations and workshops by:
 SeedBroadcast with Grow
Alexis Elton 
Christie Green Radicle
Rodrigo Guzmán de San Martín 
Hakim Bellamy 
Jessica Frelinghuysen 
Erik Banjamins
FICTILIS:Andrea Steves & Timothy Furstnau 
Marie Dorsey 
Tina Rapp
Hye Young Kim Currents New Media Fellow
Amy Malbeouf Canada Council for the Arts Fellow

UN|silo|ED Hub at Santa Fe Art Institute

 The SeedBroadcast UN|silo|ED hub was active with our food justice soundscape, a mapping of various food justice projects, including the Grow Your Own Story installation created by students from Catherine Harris’s class in the Arts and Ecology department at the University of New Mexico, interactive work station and seed exchange.

“Working together as a class and in collaboration with SeedBroadcast has been a wonderful experience! Grow has been both a gratifying and challenging project. We are honored to have made such a positive impact on our communities in Albuquerque at UNM and Barcelona Elementary and in Santa Fe at the Santa Fe Art Institute and Monte Del Sol Charter School. Thank you to everyone who took time to participate and allow us to GROW their story. Even bigger thanks to SeedBroadcast for sharing your space and giving us a platform for Grow!” 

Catherine Harris' Intermediate Art and Ecology Class of Spring 2015 

Listen to Evelyn Lefebre, Clark Frauenglass and Ashley Gordon talk about their project Grow

The Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station was parked at the entrance of the building to broadcast seed stories, loud and clear, around the event.

This was a time to share locally sourced food and conversation in a dignified atmosphere of mutual understanding and concerns over the contemporary state of our agricultural practices the inadequacies of access to healthy food. We shared stories and concerns; we discussed each others projects, and made commitments to keep this theme alive and vibrant in the optimist hope of eventually making change.

 The following are some thoughts on Food Justice from the SFAI residents:
Listen to Alexis Elton 
Listen to Yoko Inoue
Listen to Nikki Pike

SeedBroadcasting from the Albuquerque Community Day.

Peanut seeds shared from Farmer Lack Lopez West and Peas and Hominy Farm

How do we sustain diverse and meaningful food traditions in the face of climate change and with all the challenges we face on a daily basis?

This question seemed ripe during the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History Community Day celebrating Fathers and local food culture on Sunday June 21. It was Summers Solstice, the longest day of the year, and Father’s Day too. It was also well over 100 degrees and everyone was either wilting in the radiant glory of the heat or scurrying towards interior spaces of artificial cool to relax and go gaga over the high heels exhibit at the museum before scurrying off to yet another cool sexy space.

MSSBS out in front of the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History

The day was hot and so was the Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station and all the seeds that we share with folks. So seeds, people, and all had to bolster some resilience to be out celebrating the seeds, the farmers, the food, and the fathers that nourish us with their strength and care.

The event also included local chefs preparing gourmet items on site and the Vecinos Artists Collective engaging people in their project, IF I WERE A SEED… where they ask folks to visualize being a seed and growing the change they want to be through making an individualized seed mural. They were also collecting recipes on site and typing them out on an old typewriter.

Vecinos Artist Collective, If I were a seed...

Vecinos Artist Collective, If I were a seed... mural by anonymous

Paul Lopéz Jr. who is part of the Vecinos Artist Collective also shared a Seed Story with us. Check it out here:

https://soundcloud.com/seedbroadcast/paul-lopez-jr-shares-his-story-about-the-buena-tierra-farm-project

Drawing corn pictures

Posting peanut pictures

Several kids came by to draw seed stories as they were making a circuit, running through the water fountain to cool off then back around to the Broadcasting Station. They spent time drawing their favorite seeds and also drawing out the process of growing a seed into its traditional food way.

Peanuts and corn became the favorite seeds of the day and someone asked what the difference was between a peanut that is eaten and a seed of a peanut that is planted. They are the same. And this unites us in the remembering that the foods we eat, the daily blessings of the seed is also the seed that renews our local traditions on the land, in our kitchens, and with our families and communities.

The peanuts came from local Albuquerque farmer, Jack Lopez West, from Peas and Hominy Farm, who as a new father, came by with his family to share popcorn, peanuts, and carrot seeds and also record a seed story about his mentor from South Carolina who was the father of many plant children. Jack also offered up wisdom for starting a new local tradition, growing sweet potatoes as a staple food crop to replace energy intensive grains.

You can listen to Jack’s Seed Story here:

https://soundcloud.com/seedbroadcast/farmer-jack-lopez-west-shares-a-seed-story-about-learning-the-art-of-the-seed

SeedBroadcasting from Celebración de Culturas Familia Y Tradiciones

Seed Story drawings inside the Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station

On June 13, 2015 SeedBroadcast participated in the Celebración de Culturas Familia Y Tradiciones in the high mountains of Northern New Mexico. This was the first annual weekend event bringing together local artisans, traditional crafts, storytelling, presentations, demonstrations, and great food to celebrate the genius of place across the Peñasco valley. The event as a whole took place in the villages of Rio Lucio, Peñasco, Vadito, Rodarte, Llano de la Yegua, Llano de San Juan Nepomuceno, Chamisal, and Las Trampas. In each of these villages people opened their houses and shops to share their deep creative knowledge and historic rural practices.

Homemade tortilla demonstration and the best tortillas hot off the grill!

Visitors came from all over the region and many old timers came from far away to see friends and family. All weekend long people drove from site to site learning about fiber arts, ceramics, making posole and other traditional foods, wood crafts and furniture, retablo painting, herbs, and lots more. Here is a link the Celebración de Culturas web: http://www.penasconm.org

SeedBroadcast helper, Chloe Maize, helped several young folks make their own Seed Story drawings

Natalie Lopez invited us to park the Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station out in front of her small business, La Jicarita Harvest and old family adobe home where she serves up authentic Northern New Mexican food including the notorious chicharrón burrito with mounds of green chile. During the morning we watched as Ivan Rodriguez cooked chicharrónes over a small wood fire.

Ivan stirs the chicharónnes and talks about matanzas

Boiling chicharónnes

Chicharónnes are pork rinds that are boiled and then fried in their own fat. It takes much patience, time, and many stories to properly prepare chicharónnes . Here is Ivan’s Seed Story….. and of course the chicharónnes were perfect!

https://soundcloud.com/seedbroadcast/ivan-rodriquez-shares-his-seed-stories


During the day several storms passed through bringing blessings of rain for local crops but putting a damper on visitors to the Broadcast Station. Nevertheless, the event continued throughout the intermittent rain and we met several local farmers and gardeners who climbed aboard the van to talk seed. One young lady talked about revitalizing the old seeds by getting all the local families together to bring out their seeds, tell their stories, and cultivate an intergenerational effort to grow the seeds once more. She wondered how to do this?

The local chico corn is no exception and it was spoken of several times over the day as one of the most valued seeds, food, and traditions. Known as maiz de concho, this white flint variety is used to make posole and chicos which are staple foods for regional communities throughout the winter. Chicos are made by putting fresh ears of corn, husks and all, into an horno, roasting overnight, and then drying for storage. An horno is a large adobe oven that is pre-heated with firewood and retains heat overnight and throughout the next day. It is often used to make chicos, bake bread, and roast meat.

Horno building demonstration

Natalie’s husband, Roy, was demonstrating how to build an horno on site, right out in front of La Jicarita Harvest. He already had the concrete pad prepared and spent the entire day laying out the first course of adobe bricks and mudding them together. Once it is done they will use it to make their chicos and bake bread.

At the end of the day Roy sang us a seed song about keeping the seeds alive with families and communities. Here it is:

https://soundcloud.com/seedbroadcast/roy-lopez-sings-seeds-from-celebracion-de-culturas-penasco-new-mexico


Thanks to all we met at the Celebratión de Culturas keeping the seeds alive and growing!

SeedBroadcasting at UrbanRefuge A.R.T.S.

SeedBroadcast will be at the UrbanRefuge A.R.T.S. Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refugeat to celebrate and record stories about South Valley agri-Culture.

Join us for a day broadcasting, share stories and seeds.

Saturday July 11, 2015 from 10am - 3pm
Valle de Oro Wildlife Refuge
7851 2nd St SW
Albuquerque, NM

A.R.T.S.
Artistic Expressions
Recycling/Repurposing
Transportation Activities
Storytelling/Seed Projects

Here is a link to more information: https://www.facebook.com/events/760893424032286/

Bees + Seeds: Time of Action and Solidarity for Food Justice.

March against Monsanto

In this time of major shifts in our world around the injustices of access to healthy food and seeds there is such a need for action. We cannot allow these inequalities to continue and for major corporations to govern and determine the rights to own and distribute our seeds. This is a human right and has been part of our traditional agricultural system since we humans started our relationship to seeds and plants. This is a relationship based on reciprocity and without the balance and without the understanding that we are not the controllers we are heading to a disastrous tipping point.

Saturday May 23rd 2015 was a global day of solidarity and action sponsored by  March Against Monsanto and GMO- Free New Mexico .
Groups from all over the world held their own events, marches and educational activities to highlight the need to take back our food systems and promote positive solutions for local food growing.

 It was a call for action for:

• Solidarity against Monsanto’s predatory business and agricultural practices 
• Reject “ substantial equivalence” of GMO crops 
• Promote organic solutions 
• Expose the cronyism between big business and the government 
• Address poverty, the real cause of global hunger 
• Support food and seed sovereignty 
• Support local farms, bees and biodiversity 
• Labeling of all food that contains GMO’s 

Local sustainability activist Anna Maldonado

SeedBroadcast was invited by Chris Perkins to take part in the Albuquerque event called Bees + Seeds. This started with a march from the Downtown Growers Market to the Bees + Seeds Festival of music, speakers, bee and seed art, local action groups and food. This festival provided the space of people to speak out and to engage in animated conversations around many GMO issues.

Jade Leyva with her Seed Mural project

The SeedBroadcast Mobile Broadcasting Station was active and alive with visitors exchanging seeds and information about the ins and outs of growing and saving seeds in the dry southwest. Squash seeds arrived from local seed saver, Raven. He has been growing these seeds out for over forty years and were originally given to him by the great Hopi leader Grandfather David . Grandfather David was the teacher and mentor to John Kimmey, who he entrusted with the Hopi Prophecy. Kimmey  ventured further afield to sensitively spread this prophecy. In the seventies Kimmey joined with local activist Seth Rothman (Green Fire Times) to start the Talavaya organization. Talavaya was established after talking with elderly Indian and Hispanic farmers and discovering there were only a few left who still planted the old seed strains of their ancestors. It became one of the first seed banks in the southwest to save and distribute local traditional seeds. 

Raven with his Hopi squash seeds

 So forty years later the seeds were returning with their held stories and the resilience to retain their essence of purity.  They returned to remind us that we need to protect them as these strains of seeds are rapidly disappearing taking with them the traditions that are at the heart of many cultures.
We cannot let this happen.
 So let this day of action against Monsanto spark more actions, and more actions.....Please do not keep silent, raise your voices, seek those local varieties of seeds, put your hands in the soil, plant them and pray and sing for their survival…….

“There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.” Arundhati Roy

The following are some of the voices that spoke out:

Anna Maldonado shares her story of GMO'S

Sarah Jones talks about her love of seed bombing Yvonne Cunningham talks straight up about Food Justice Timothy Gallardo talks about applying real science to food production Sally-Alice Thompson talks about food justice and sings a song about the right to know Robin Seydel talks about justice and fairness from the soil upwards
Bryna Stalarow talks about injustice of food Marian West talks about Food Justice

Ways you can take action:

• Call or meet with your local officials
• Plant Bee-friendly flowers
• Boycott food companies that use GMO's and pesticides
• Plant a vegetable garden
• Grow food
• Grow a garden with your neighbor
• Vote with your fork
• Buy organic and local sustainable foods
• Save your lace race seeds
• Speak out, sing out, dance out
• Listen to our planet