FOOD FOR LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY PROJECT

Friday
Jan202012

About the Project

 

Food for Life                                                 What Food are You?

Fill in the blank: I would be devastated if (food) ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________ disappeared from the earth. Yet, bananas face certain extinction in our lifetime and many more foods are about to enter the endangered list as the century moves forward.

Recently I began a new photography research project titled Food for Life. The project springs from a personal passion to understand how food contributes to our cultural, political and economic identities. Starting in the summer of 2010 I began photographing several community gardens in the Marquette area. One of the gardeners working the plots turned 90 last year while the youngest members of group often road on the backs of their mothers who were stooped in the process of weeding. During the winter months, friends, family members and even strangers I have met at the local food co-op have come to my studio with the ‘one’ food they could not live without. The digital still and moving images I am capturing during this project are informed by the research techniques of documentary photography and testimonio narratives. I infuse the knowledge gleaned from this mix of qualitative and scientific research with the visual rhetoric of photography to create a window through which we can glimpse, just for a moment, how our identities are shaped by the food we consume.

On its basic level this project seeks to explore our human connection to the land we inhabit and to the human communities we build upon it. I look forward to the process of transformation this new journey will bring. If you are interested in being a part of this project contact me at cgarceau@gmail.com.