More About Project EATS

PROLOGUE

Both personally and as an artist, I am drawn to stories of people who “hold on.” People faced with adversity, scarcity, or threat who “hold on” to their humanity and self, fairness and decency, imagination and creativity, their care and caring for life and nature. 

While filming a documentary about people trying to hold on to their relevance in American politics during the 2004 and 2008 Presidential Elections, I began to wonder: “Could a documentary film be something other than a record of past events?  Could its form and content exist off screen? Could it be experienced rather than observed, made with art and non-art forms?  Could a documentary, and thus art, be actions people take to shape or reshape the conditions that affect their daily lives and well-being?  Would it be an ArtAction?”  - Linda Goode Bryant

STORY 

Project EATS (EATS) is an ArtAction.  It is a “documentary story” told off screen and inserted into the routines, activities and actions of everyday life in urban communities.  The story follows what happens when people - residents, students, and workers - start food production farms in their neighborhoods in order to grow enough food to feed, heal, and generate resources for their communities.  PREMISE. The story’s premise is that people can create what they need with what they have.  The viability of old urban neighborhoods and the well-being of their long-time residents, students, and workers depend on it.  Its ArtAction premise is that current times require inventive and creative forms of art and social strategies, interwoven and integrated into daily life, to generate the social, economic, and political actions that are needed to improve well-being in nature, life, and society.

CHARACTERS

The story of Project EATS is told through actual and fictional characters and events.  Its initial characters are actual community members who start community-run farms and food enterprises in their urban neighborhoods. 

These characters involve other members of the community who also become characters when they help maintain and grow the neighborhood business. Actual people from within and outside the community whose actions affect their efforts, Project EATS staff, and fictional characters created by the artist complete the “cast.” Fictional characters are introduced into the story to provide history, context, and additional perspectives on what takes place.

The story will follow multiple storylines that develop within and between different communities.

SETTING

The story happens now, at an unlikely time and in unlikely places for farming.  It occurs in America where urban agriculture has historically meant recreational gardening in public and community spaces.  These gardens have been developed to achieve social or political objectives that are unrelated to food production (i.e. to acculturate immigrants, support the troops, pacify social unrest, beautify “blighted” areas, and educate the public about health and nutrition). Food production and its viability have not previously been the purpose or goal of urban agriculture in America.

Project EATS happens in urban areas where land is divided and sold in small plots, developed into housing, industrial, or commercial buildings and valued for more than farmland.    

The story also occurs at a time when corporate farms account for more agricultural production than small family or independent farms in America. Food is grown and transported from places far away from the markets where it is sold.  Public thought and policy believe that the viability and well-being of old urban neighborhoods can best be achieved through the public’s divestment in their natural and physical resources; private development and gentrification; and the displacement and relocation of their residents to areas outside the urban hub.

WHAT HAPPENS

The story began in 2009 and currently takes place in 7 New York City neighborhoods located in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Manhattan where communities have started their farms.  Three storylines drive the central story and are contextualized by the stories unfolding at other sites.  New storylines are added as new sites are developed.  In 2012, three new sites with characters and events will be introduced into the story.

The story at each location begins when students at neighborhood high schools, workers in the community, participants in one or more community-based organizations, and Project EATS staff launch sites. Working in partnership, high schools and community organizations provide the site and the materials needed to construct the farms.  Project EATS provides farmers, facilitators, and any additional materials needed to start the farms and an outdoor community market.  From food grown at the farms, Project EATS develops product lines that make it possible for communities to expand and diversify their markets and revenue streams.  It also provides paid apprenticeships for community youth and adults.

Each community faces natural and man-made challenges in its efforts to farm and operate its food enterprise.   Securing use and access of property for its sites; sufficient sunlight; maintaining healthy, nutrient-rich soil; intensive growing in small spaces; urban pests; favorable/unfavorable community and public responses; the willingness and ability of community members to shift their consumptive and behavioral food patterns to support their food enterprise are common obstacles each community faces and must overcome to succeed.

FRAMEWORK 

To create this story, art and social strategies are combined and used to reshape or change the social, economic, and political conditions in communities where the story occurs.  Social Strategy. Its social strategy is to start neighborhood-based and operated farm operations in urban neighborhoods that vitalize and enrich their natural, human, and physical resources.  Art Strategy.  Its art strategy is to create and publicly install forms of art (conceptual, visual, audio, performance, and structural) that perform two functions. They introduce and integrate historical context, competing perspectives, and new possibilities into the daily life of the community and into the story’s actual events.  They also document and present the story’s events in public spaces where they can be engaged by community members and the larger public. 

For example, Project EATS supports new uses for natural, human, and public resources in urban communities. It promotes a more active and collaborative form of community.  It supposes different measures for valuing community resources than currently used by society.  These ideas, thoughts, and suppositions are introduced and integrated into the community through art installations. 

Instead of being told on a page, projected or exhibited in rooms, broadcast on radio or digitally online, community members will be able to follow, engage, react, and join the story in public and community spaces where actions occur and installations are installed.  Beginning in 2012, portions of installations and footage from actual events will also appear on Project EATS and partner websites for the community and general public to engage.

STRUCTURE

The story’s structure is designed like a quilt.  Instead of a straight-line, the story is told through a patchwork of actual events and installations that accumulate over time. (Actual-event patches will contain video, audio recordings, and pictures taken at the time actions and events occur.)  Each individual patch tells its own story and is an element that shapes the overall story. 

In an ever-changing landscape of patches and story elements “clues” will make it possible for people who live in or come to the community to engage individual patches and the overall story as it takes place. Those who involve themselves in the story and in the community on an ongoing basis will be most able to experience the story contextually.  They should also be able to see how their social actions outside the community and their engagement with the story affect its outcome(s).     

Artistically, the goal of this project is to create a story that has a direct impact on the life and conditions where it occurs. A story that is specific, universal, detailed, layered, contextual, and panoramic.  A story that is immediate and historic at the same time. Revealing events as they happen against past and present social, political, and economic patterns of social thought, action, and behavior that affect what currently occurs. 

HOW DOES IT END? 

Project EATS is a story with actual life consequences.  Each community will start actual farms and enterprises they operate.  Their ability to sustain and grow their businesses will depend on actual and fictive events that shape and drive the story.  Shifts in community perception, behavior, and action are keys to the outcome of the story.  If there is no shift the story’s premise will be disproved.

Whatever the story’s outcome(s) its stakes are high.  Through Project EATS urban communities will discover their ability to determine and assert what matters to them.  They will learn the extent to which they can use and develop their resources to increase and sustain their viability.   The degree to which their influence, relative to the influence of outside interests, determines what is possible in their communities.  People will know whether their actions rather than prevailing social thought, public policies, and social actions are more effective in meeting their needs and achieving their visions of well-being.