An Occupied Community.

Amid the popular “Occupy” movement, there have come several subdivisions of social issues that seem to be impacting the supposed “99%” of the common population. Among these branches of awareness movements is the newly found “Occupy Against Big Food” ideology. In November of 2011, this group decided to jump onto the Occupy bandwagon by forming a peaceful protest group that gathered in Zuccotti Park in New York City. The group was organized and founded by a nutritional expert and an NYU food studies graduate and managed to gather at least 50 people in the small paved park in the middle New York City.

The rally-goers for this particular event are often associated as a type of “occupant” involved in the Occupy Movement. They often identify themselves as the ‘Foodie’ population or part of the “Slow Food Movement”. In previous times, the ‘Foodies’ have associated themselves with the ideology of sustainable farms, small farms, fair trade of crops within poverty-stricken agricultural communities, and more humane treatment of massive industrial-sized factory farm livestock. The Slow Food Movement was founded as part of a countermovement against the fast food industry, endorsing ideas of small, organic, and close-knitted farming and distribution trends. This community declares themselves to be crusaders for the cause of organic and healthy food for everyone.

However, this rally, as well as the community has been met with much disdain from the populous. Like many of the Occupy rallies, the police have become involved due to public discourse within the greater scheme of the city, such as disruption of public peace and obstruction of traffic. The Slow Food Movement as a whole, similar to many facets of the Occupy argument (which deals with the discrepancy of the supposed “1% vs. 99%” has been met with criticism from actual members of more poverty-stricken communities. These members of poorer communities are often forced to support a fast food habit due to their income, but do not see these protesters as doing anything constructive for their cause. Many members of these less fortunate communities are dead-set against these crusaders for Slow Food, arguing that they often depend on these fast food restaurants for survival, and that this cause  has no business trying to change the status quo of economic impact since they themselves are not dependent on fast food.

This community seems to be doing its own agenda, maintaining its calm throughout much protest. It’s a cause which when gathered into small groups, seems to not have much power; but as whole, it is recognized as something to be reasoned with.

For more information on the Occupy Big Food Rallies, please see the following sites. 
http://occupybigfood.wordpress.com/
http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2011/11/01/occupy-big-food/ 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-wartman/occupy-wall-street-food_b_1062967.html

Sources:

Wartman, Kristin. “Occupy Against Big Food.” Huffington Post, October 28, 2011. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-wartman/occupy-wall-street-food_b_1062967.html.

One...Two...Three Strikes; You're Art.

When I initially started looking up art to describe the industrial food system, I first and formally thought of the film “Food, Inc”; but then I realized that it would be unwise to create a blog post about a film that I had heard so much about, but had not yet seen. So I chose against that initial impulse. Then, I thought once more about my subject. I want to focus on the industrial food systems in terms of their location and the economic success/ impact of the area. It is my knowledge that many fast food places are located in poverty-stricken areas, and that they hold a dominant market of customers. These customers are often unable to afford things other than fast food, so the fast food restaurants grab a greater hold on the population by being the only option. I’m interested in seeing this connection explored more, especially how the corporate food system chooses to place their stores.

In thinking about the social aspects of the fast food industry when it comes to financial situations of the customers, I thought of the film made by Morgan Spurlock in 2004 called “Supersize Me”. Within the documentary, there are pieces of art that make an obvious hyperbole of the grasp that the fast food industry has on its customers.

HOWEVER, in my final decision, I decided to go back to the initial idea of an industrial food system. How it is an industry, as opposed to the idea of simply being a business. With that and a little help from Google, I was able to find a series of paintings done by a satirical painter named Nathan Meltz. He has a series of paintings devoted to the pure, cold, mechanical presence of the industrial food system. In his paintings and screens, Meltz creates depictions of large quantities of livestock often kept and harvested on an industrial scale. Instead of creating these creatures as they are in nature, with soft curves of flesh and expressive faces, these creatures are made to look entirely mechanical. Their joints are gears, and their eyes are lenses. There is nothing natural about them except their general shape. I believe that Meltz is attempting to comment on how the industrial food system has created these creatures to not be viewed as pieces of living tissue, but rather as a mechanized resource that is cold and inorganic. I added his main website to the Zotero site. He has several pieces of animation that use the same style. In a brief overview of his paintings, I have seen the theme of mechanization throughout.

When It Comes to Peers...

For the "peer review" exercise, I viewed the first blog posts of Andrew, Tatiana, and Katie. In all their blogs, I ended up reviewing the post that spoke of the "A New World is Possible" documentary that we viewed in the first few days of class.

Andrew's Blog talked about the festival as a whole, focusing mainly on the aspects of performance as power within the festivals. He aptly highlighted the effective use of different cultural aspects to try and drive home the issues at hand.

Tatiana's Blog spoke about the World Social Forum in the idea that it was overshadowed by so many other things that Western society seems to find important. A very interesting take about the acknowledgement of the obvious bias when it comes to seeing social issues in a Western gaze.

Katie's Blog took time to focus on the issues with farmers according to the World Social Forum gathering of 2002. She brings to light her own opinion about how we see native farmers according to a Western gaze. She acknowledges the issues associated with farmers trying to stay loyal to natural ways.