What do you know about the food you eat?
Farmland: Food, Justice, and Sovereignty is centered around questions of food knowledge, production, scarcity, and consumption against the background of Michigan State University’s 170-year history of agricultural tradition.
Founded in 1855, the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan (now Michigan State University) sought not only to promote practical education in the agricultural arts but to turn the college into a model farm for the entire nation. It was the first institution for the study of agriculture of its kind, preceding its status as the prototype land-grant university.
Starting with the nucleus of agriculture—the farm and its changing relationship to the society it serves—the exhibition provides wide-ranging perspectives on key themes associated with equitable access to food: the urban-rural divide, issues of labor, race and immigration, the United States’ history of slavery and its continued protectionist import and export policies as well as modes of consumption centered around the commodification of food infrastructure and access to food.
Through community knowledge and art, Farmland tells a story of Indigenous knowledge, institutional research, farming, seeds, crops, and how the way food systems are designed can either hunger or nurture. The show is centered around a widespread network of local community consultants and collaborators—agricultural students, farmers, activists, researchers, and historians.
Farmland: Food, Justice, and Sovereignty is organized by the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University and co-curated by Teresa Fankhänel, former Associate Curator, and Dalina A. Perdomo Álvarez, Assistant Curator, with support from Madison Kennedy-Kequom, Curatorial Intern, and contributions by the Justice League of Greater Lansing Michigan. Support for this exhibition is provided by the Eli and Edythe Broad Endowed Exhibitions Fund and the Alan and Rebecca Ross Endowed Exhibitions Fund.
Artists: Ambiguous Standards Institute, Mathias Joseph Alten, William Camargo, Sue Coe, Cooking Sections, John S. Coppin, Francisco de Goya, Grupo Compacto Humano, Huamani de la Cruz Family, Laton Alton Huffman, Jamie John, Mila Lynn, Dylan AT Miner, Gordon Newton, Michaela Nichelle, Lina Puerta, Abraham Rattner, Laurie Simmons, Larry Sprague, Joel Sternfeld, Tammy Tarbell-Boehning, Julian Van Dyke, and Andy Warhol.