About the Exhibition
Around the Table will celebrate the myriad of global food traditions and consider the environmental and social impacts of food through examination of the following:
- The origins of diverse fruits and vegetables. The average consumer may have little connection to where their food comes from, and may be unaware of the traditional origin of plants, agricultural techniques, or food traditions—even if those foods or traditions are themselves familiar.
- Food as a carrier of culture. In families and communities all over the world the people who prepare food pass on keys to collective identity along with recipes. Food preparation is often romanticized, and the labor of preparing the food we eat may be sanitized—or erased.
- Visible and invisible forces that shape our diets and traditions, and have dictated who has access to certain foods—historically and today.
- The choices we make about the foods we eat have environmental and social consequences. Single-crop industrial agriculture and global movement of food have environmental impacts. Food workers—on farms, in processing, in shipping and distribution, and working in stores and restaurants—bring our food to us every day, but are often overlooked, even exploited, around the world.
- Global conversations and communications around food, and access to food resources, are not equally accessible—across our city or worldwide. The exhibition will explore the conversations currently in progress around changing—even challenging—the typical narratives around the foods we eat, food histories, and who tells the stories.
