FEED
September 18th to 26th 2009
9am to 7pm - closed sundays
Essex Street Market, New York
between Rivington & Delancey Streets
Public markets have always been a primary commodity exchange site. Within the urban setting, they used to be known as vital cultural centers for social exchange. FEED, a migratory exhibition presented by Fragmental Museum, seeks to renourish these public spaces by installing visual arts and cultural projects in order to highlight and present relationships that already exist. The interactions, between merchant and shopper, product and consumer, artist and audience, and community members alike, are fluid. FEED seeks to encourage these existing open connections and to foster a dynamic conversation with a desire to better understand the myriad ways in which we relate to ourselves, to one other and, to our surrounding environment.
The video screening program is curated by Gabriela Galati and featuring "Baby Bottle" by Baptiste Debombourg, "Pinocchio" by Luca Bolognesi and "The Bud, The Seed, The Egg" by Mores McWreath.
"Famine," a collective action coordinated by Vanessa Chimera & Paolo Bertocchi, will engage public market visitors and local merchants throughout the space by using research on historical edibles in the Lower East Side, with the help of Tenement Museum archives.
Anthropologists Chelsea Estep-Armstrong and Rachel Signer will collaborate with various activists, artists, and academics to design interactive walking tours which will employ various methods of critical inquiry in order to generate new ways of thinking about food in the contexts of space and place. On the other hand, anthropologist (MSc) Mebrak Tareke will be looking into how international organizations and local community efforts have contributed to innovative food-related programs and, she will try to decipher how theories on the Anthropology of Food weave into Fragmental Museum's FEED project and its social and cultural framework.
