Forgive me I am going to mention the readings from last week with this one. I identified with photographer Edward Steichen that brought delphiniums into the Museum of Modern Art

“The first artist to claim plant breeding as a fine art was the photographer Edward Steichen, who, from the 1920s until the outbreak of World War II, hybridized delphiniums, cleomes, nicotianas, poppies, and sunflowers at his country home in Connecticut.”

“ ...genetics was destined to play an extremely important role in human affairs, and consequently was everybody's business, including artists.”

In my work, I also use food to start conversation, storytelling and also go into nutrition and ways the degree of proximity with food changes our lives.

In the article Lee The Work of Art as Life, he says “The movement away from art objects has been precipitated by concerns within natural and man-made systems, processes, ecological relationships, and the philosophical-linguistic involvement of conceptual art. All of these interests deal with art that is transactional; they deal with underlying structures of communication or energy exchange instead of abstract appearances...”

recently:

http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2010/11/16/transporting-nature

“One question that stands out for me is: What are and were the ethical and spiritual dimensions of our relationship to plants in our zeal for invention—and where are we going with this? I think this NASA video about Plant Productivity in a Warming World tells an interesting story.”

In this article:
http://biomediale.ncca-kaliningrad.ru/?blang=eng&author=gessert
"Today there is no serious philosophical opposition to genetic art, but a mature art of evolution remains almost as distant as it was before World War II. Full exploration of genetic art will require, as a bare minimum, new kinds of museums, spaces that welcome rather than exclude diverse forms of life. We can imagine traditional gallery spaces combined with gardens, zoos, and wilderness areas.
Art involving DNA is extremely diverse, but individual works often bring up the same questions: what kind of consciousness does the work serve? To what extent does it aestheticize the biological revolution, help commodify life, and further the holocaust of nature? On the other hand, does the work contribute to awareness that plants and animals did not arise for our sake, that they have their own ways of becoming and their own paths to fulfillment? How does a particular work of art affect the community of life? These are social questions but ones that in genetic art are inseparable from aesthetic experience."

few more thoughts:

food policy

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/10/the_great_food_crisis_of_2011

Caryn in a local raw chef that will come to the StoryHarvest http://www.rawteacher.com/halleluna/?p=about