Aeron Bergman and Alejandra Salinas: Consuming Nature
Aeron Bergman and Alejandra Salinas: Consuming Nature
10.07.2021
Consuming Nature (Public Domain Photos of Public Domain Seeds)
Aeron Bergman and Alejandra Salinas
October 7 - November 1
Curated by Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz
The Luminary is pleased to present the works of Aeron Bergman and Alejandra Salinas, Consuming Nature (Public Domain Photos of Public Domain Seeds), curated by Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz. Produced from research performed during their virtual residency, Consuming Nature is a series of site-specific billboards along the roadsides from Sauget, IL (formerly Monsanto) driving towards St. Louis, MO, accompanying documentary audio, and an essay published by MARCH. The billboards will be viewable from October 7 to November 1, 2021.
The images on the billboards are simple and nondescript—photos of hands holding wild, public domain, and open-source seeds, such as amaranth; a picture of health, collaboration, and lush nature in the contrasting landscape. The verb "to colonize" is derived from the Latin word colonus meaning "farmer, tiller, or planter,” linking colonialism to land and land use. Through Consuming Nature, Bergman and Salinas consider the contrast between food production as the most important technological project in civilization and the severing of people from their ability to produce food, thus destroying sovereignty. The Spanish conquistadors knew this, and soon after their conquest, they outlawed the Inca, Maya, Aztecs, and all indigenous conquered peoples from cultivating their most important, nutritious, and sacred crop: amaranth. Amaranth survived its colonial prohibition because it was a beloved, sacred, and resilient crop. In a turn of schadenfreude, wild amaranth developed into a “superweed” that grows quickly and adapts easily, choking out fields of modern, agro-tech
The audio documentary includes interviews with:
*Ronaldo Eleazar Lec Ajcot*, Co-founder Mesoamerican Permaculture Institute, Guatemala
*Dr. Kū Kahakalau*, Hawaiian educator, researcher, cultural practitioner, grassroots activist, and expert in Hawaiian language, history and culture.
*Bill McDorman*, Co-founder Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance
*Irwin Goldman*, Professor in the Horticulture department, University of Wisconsin-Madison
*Kelly Wilson and Justine Hernandez*, Seed Librarians, Pima County
*Jack Kloppenburg*, Secretary, Open Source Seed Initiative and professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin-Madison
For access to the audio documentary: Listen here
Read the essay on MARCH.