Portfolio > Assembly Is Required, FOOD

Assembly Is Required, is a traveling collaborative exhibition that invites participants into artist studios, galleries, and arts institutions to assemble a temporary installation that evolves over time at each site. These exhibitions create temporary communities that connect artists with the public through the process of shared art making, and place making.

There have been several iterations of this interactive exhibition and Assembly is Required, FOOD, was installed at 621 Gallery and consisted of an interactive video installation that included a mobile community garden. Gallery visitors were encouraged to plant seeds and starter plants throughout the exhibition. The MANIFESTO:FOOD zine publication was also included. Designed to resemble an IKEA assembly booklet, and in typical zine style the booklet shared informative text borrowed from many sources including, Vandana Shiva's book, ‘Manifestos on the Future of Food and Seed’, digital collages that I created from instruction guides, and links to internet resources relating to food justice and urban farming. There was also a link embedded in there to the full text article of Nicolas Bourriaud”s “Postproduction: Culture as Screenplay: How Art Reprograms the World.” The zine was presented in stacks and free to whomever took on the labor to assemble it.

The project as a whole proposed an opportunity for the viewer to contemplate the political nature of what it means to “Do It Yourself” in relation to issues surrounding consumption and labor.