Art, Farming and Food for the Future (Routledge Explorations in Environmental Studies)

This book explores the impact of artistic experiments in inspiring people to turn away from current food consumerism and take an active role in preserving, sustaining, and protecting the environment.

As artists are expanding their practice into social justice and community concerns, erasing traditional forms of expression and integrating others, the culture around food and its production has been added to a new vocabulary of experiential art. The authors measure the impact of such experiments on local food consumption and production, focusing on education and youth, both in the surrounding community and culture at large. They suggest how these projects can be up-scaled to further encourage sustainable solutions for our environment and communities. The book explores the reflections and motivations of case study practitioners in urban and rural areas and, through interviews, engages with artists who are pioneering a new trend to create hubs of activity away from traditional art spaces in cities to follow a non-hierarchal practice that is de-centralized and communally based.

This book will be of great interest to academic readers concerned with issues related to environmental aesthetics, eco-design, eco-criticism, culture, heritage, memory, and identity, and those interested in the current debates on the place of aesthetics and culture in sustainability.

Barbara L. Benish is an artist and Founding Director of ArtMill, Czech Republic, and Fellow at the Social Practice Arts Research Center at University of California, Santa Cruz, USA.

Nathalie Blanc is a CNRS Director of Research at Paris Cité University, France.