Westlands: The Politics of Water and Agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley

Description

Please join us for a lively and engaging talk with artist Cynthia Hooper, whose video Westlands is featured in the Food Shift exhibition at Interface Gallery.

In her year of researching and documenting the Westlands water district for her video, Hooper has become well informed about the complex politics of water and agriculture in the Westlands water district and beyond. Hooper is not only well informed, but accessible, and the details about this district are riveting and compelling, but unfortunately reflect the real life politics of water, pollution, and servitude that plague our industrial agricultural system.

As Hooper writes, "The Westlands water district in California's San Joaquin Valley is undisputedly the largest and most powerful in the nation. This agricultural district's outsized and highly mechanized operations grow billions of pounds of tomatoes, almonds, pistachios, wheat and cotton for the global market each year. Westlands also has the country's highest poverty rate, lowest education levels, intractable pollution and tainted water. The story of this place typifies well-intentioned Federal policy gone awry: subsidies historically devised to foster a sustainable agrarian economy for the many now promote concentrations of power and profit for the few."

ABOUT the Food Shift Exhibition at Interface Gallery:

Food Shift in an interactive, interdisciplinary exhibition dedicated to exploring the social, environmental and human impacts of food waste and food systems from a variety of perspectives.

This exhibition is inspired by and designed to call attention to the work of Bay Area organization, Food Shift. Food Shift is an Earth Island Institute sponsored project working to build a more just and sustainable food system. A primary area of focus for the organization involves looking at the relationship between food waste and hunger.

Works and interactive activities presented in this exhibition look critically at problems with our current food systems as well as present alternative ways of thinking about how to make use of food waste, while contributing to more just and sustainable practices.

More Info

Link

http://www.interfaceartgallery.com

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415 990-8028

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