Single-Use Planet

“Agricouture” by Rachel Kippen

24 x 36 Oil on canvas Materials: Retrieved agricultural PVC piping and drip tape from West Beach Road, Watsonville, California.

Artist Statement:

The title referencing couture is meant to highlight the role often bestowed upon women in consumerism culture, women identified as objects that are meant for adornement, and in the worst scenarios, bought and sold.

The species and habitat choice (coastal wetlands and sage) illustrate the conflict between mass agriculture practices and wild spaces, the wetlands that once covered the Pajaro River’s floodplain are now Driscoll strawberry fields. The focal point of the piece is the woman’s uterus, meant to look like a seed. The process of patenting seeds not only represents a capitalist economy that exploits renewable resources by turning them into commodity; it also represents a patriarchal system that controls the life giving systems of the earth and of women’s reproductive rights (Shiva, 2015, p.24-34). This is a raping of the earth (Sojourner, 2002, p.342-346), and, accordingly, the rape of women in the field is abundant, so much so that we create laws in California that train employers to not harass, assault or rape women (Yeung, 2014).

The tadpole signifies endangered reproduction in women and in the natural world. Amphibious creatures have a supernatural aspect in my mind, as they are powerful and adaptable and almost magically capable of survival in multiple environments, transitioning from underwater breathing to hopping about on land, just as human babies must adjust to land breathing from their fishlike origins with gills in the water world that is the womb. The plastic was retrieved from agricultural ditches that feed into small lagoons that serve as tributaries to the Pajaro River. These regions are known breeding grounds for the threatened California red legged frog (CRLF). I have seen CRLF tadpoles swimming in polluted ditches where water flows directly from PVC, a material that environmentalists commonly refer to as “Satan’s Resin” (Freinkel, 2011, p.85). Phthalates also alter metamorphosis in amphibians (Mathieu-Denoncourt et al, 2015, p. 74). The PVC piping encapsulates the tadpole while it is forming, symbolizing endocrine disrupting chemicals that can influence the health of future generations, often called “hand me down poisons” (Freinkel, 2011, p.92). Amphibians, breathing through permeable skin, are an appropriate representative of the animal ability to unknowingly absorb chemicals from the environment. The plastic drip tape is meant to outline the reproductive system including the uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries. The female reproductive system is so closely linked to the health of the endocrine system, linked to the health of the woman’s environment and her exposure (Olsen, 2002, p.144).

PVC piping is used in modern agriculture to transport water, often in partnership with plastic drip tape. Viewing the earth as our mother, her breasts have become dry (Awiakta, 1993, p.358-359). This has added symbolism as California experiences extreme drought due to a changing climate. The wasteful use of plastics has exacerbated climate change. Contradictorily, farmers use plastic film mulch to keep in moisture in this drying climate to successfully produce our food, quite the catch 22.

Lastly, the display of the woman’s body is intended to invoke images of Jesus Christ on the Cross. This female version of crucifixion is intended to symbolize women and the female planet (in this interpretation earth is She) literally dying for the sins of man.

Lands of Plenty, Hands Empty

24 x 36 Materials: Oil on canvas with agricultural drip tape collected from West Beach Road ditches in Watsonville, California.

Artist Statement:

This piece illustrates a woman whose body has become full of toxins that she did not voluntarily consume. This woman is a mother, a sister, a child, a partner and a field worker. She harvests life-giving forces from the land, as she is equally a life giving force. She picks from floodplains rich and ripe with fruit, whose valleys overflow with nutrients and ebb and flow with the seasons and the tide and the decreasing influx of rain. She is a survivor of breast cancer, a virus that resulted in the invasive removal of body parts, of organs critical for the nurturing of her children and the completeness of her being. She lives with the knowledge that the rivers within her body that now run with poison may have already impacted her children’s lives, or the wellness of her grandchildren. She is a map of her community as it includes the natural and built environment and they equally have an effect on her wellbeing.

Interpretation:

The outstretched hands of field workers often is symbolic in showing the product of their agricultural efforts, dirt stained hands full of berries, carrots, and other crops. The cup runneth over. The empty hands in this image intends to remind the viewer that while those who harvest from the earth may extend hands rich in crops for the global world to consume, the individuals who provide the backbreaking labor, often immigrants from poor, Third World countries, do not possess riches that accurately represent their contribution. The hands also represent the concept of “handing down” from past and present towards future generations. Toxic chemicals in the form of pesticides and plasticizers create a burden within the woman’s body that is then transferred to her children and potentially many generations thereafter, “hand me down poisons” (Freinkel, 2011, p.92).

While there is a movement to increase opportunity for the children of immigrant workers in the Pajaro Valley, one wonders if these are simply good deeds that barely begin to mitigate injustices and primarily reduce the severity of larger abuses of a corporate and capitalist agricultural industry. I wonder if we are simply “handing down” a life rich in struggle, in racism, in xenophobic interaction, in economic hardship while merely validating it with superficial fixes towards the “support” of an exploited and oppressed community. Additionally, the social justice goal of supporting those from underserved communities may inherently undermine the efforts of balancing the human and non-human nature relationship. Those who do not have money are provided opportunity for academic and career advancement in ways that are counterproductive to incubating a culture focused on a harmonious and truly sustainable existence (Harvester, 2010, p.121).

The hands in the image flow into pools and streams of salt marsh to illustrate the original landscape, a dynamic wetland environment that is now blanketed in agricultural fields. The woman’s body is made of aerial photographed maps of the Pajaro Valley to remind the viewer that the land once was wetland in juxtaposition to what the Pajaro Valley looks like today (Caput, 2015). In this same vein, the woman’s breasts represent both past and present. Agricultural production of crops in the region has grown exponentially and the raised, circular plastic drip tape on the left breast indicates this growing industry and the synthetic materials and practices used to make this economic growth possible. The right breast is scarred. The scar is intended to subtly remind the viewer of a row of sewed seeds, a now archaic practice of planting crops. It is doubly intended to remind the viewer of a removed breast caused from cancer. The chemicals used in agriculture and the chemicals used in the creation of various plastics are known to have unpredictable negative impacts on exposed individuals.

As the Pajaro Valley’s climate changes, abnormal flash flooding of the Pajaro River has destroyed and drowned a handful of agricultural properties. This habitat, fragmented by corporate agriculture, is taken back by nature and once again turned to wetland. This is intended to remind the viewer of the Social Ecology perspective that humans are nature and evolved of nature with the ability to influence the future of nature and therefore humankind. The changing climate can be linked to the overconsumption of nature’s abundance and the deleterious effects of climate change exhibit nature’s ability to reclaim dissected and abused land. Humans represent nature as a being with the unique opportunity for nature to be self-reflective and intentional about the future.

Justification:

While researching the positions of two efforts, food justice and labor justice in Canada, Deborah Barndt recognized that allied perspectives will sometimes sit in opposition with one another. As referenced previously, so is the case with social justice and sustainability education efforts (Harvester, 2010, p.121). Through her artwork creating altars, Deborah Barndt revealed potential for intersection through the facilitation of an altar art project as it sparked conversation on an individual level, cultural level and a larger, political level with participants. In the process, Deborah Barndt also illustrated the many different historical and cultural foundations of the groups involved. I see this form of artwork as a framework to illustrate Social Ecology perspectives and as the work of a Social Ecologist, recognizing and celebrating complexity with the inclusion of human and non-human relationships.

When viewing the complexity of issues that Lands of Plenty, Hands Empty intends to illustrate, a Social Ecologist approach to researching this art may appreciate the original intent of the use of agricultural plastic. What purpose does this material serve and is it in any way helpful towards human and non-human nature? Social Ecology is not anti-technology or anti-humanist. Social Ecology recognizes that human and human society is unique because of the capacity to alter nature in ways that are either regenerative and creative, or utterly destructive (Bookchin, 1987). What are the aspects of agricultural plastic that are regenerative? What are the aspects that are destructive? Additionally, a social ecological approach to research would not immediately condemn agriculture (Bookchin, 1993, p.2). It would not ignore the fact that agriculture provides employment to migrant workers who are in need of jobs. It may contend that condemning agriculture is a veiled act towards racism or oppression of the workforce that supports the agriculture industry. A social ecological approach could also recognize that a corporate industry would likely take advantage of a poor community of people who need jobs and would prefer any job rather than not having a job at all (Bullard, 1990, p.9). The ecofeminist perspective, as it relates to social ecology, would appreciate the symbolism of the land as a woman, dissected by corporate agriculture practices and dissected personally from a cancer rooted in the pollutants found within her environment, an environmental justice issue that often targets women and the poor. The ecofeminist and social ecological perspectives also would overlap with an appreciation of women as seed holders and knowledgeable practioners of agriculture, and social ecology appreciating traditional and community based practices that are regenerative to a specific environment (Shiva, 2015, p.28). Social Ecology would appreciate that the woman is the land as she is made from the earth and evolved of nature.

Social Ecology does not reduce through the use of global or biological terms. Peet and Watts warn that “There is a resurgence of environmentalist concerns articulated explicitly in global terms (e.g. global climate change, ozone depletion) as the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio made clear. Global ecology and the discourse of global environmental management and governance, however, is attached to a renewal of the old debate over the specter of Malthusian over-population (World Bank 1992)” (Peet and Watts, 1996, p. 3).

Lands of Plenty, Hands Empty illustrates one specific region in its complexity, the Pajaro Valley flood plain. The piece elucidates earth history and connection to nature, the non human nature landscape of wetlands, the human centered production of food crops, the history and shift of the region and land use, the capitalist society that creates corporate agriculture and the many externalities experienced in the community that supports it, and the oppression of human and non human nature through intentional and unintentional abuses. The piece intends to represent an inclusive story, one that is supported through Social Ecology.