Against Monoculture is an exhibition about food justice. Offering a critical lens through which to examine the connections between food inequality, systemic racism, and environmental crisis in the United States, the exhibition features the work of contemporary artists working at the intersection of art and activism to foreground decolonial relationships to food and the land. The word “monoculture” can be read two ways. It refers, on the one hand, to the industrial agricultural practice of monocropping: growing the same crop year after year on the same plot of land. Monocropping is linked to accelerating climate change and species loss because of its reliance on deforestation and agricultural chemicals such as pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. On the other hand, the word “monoculture” refers to the oppressive practices embedded in food production in the U.S. since European settlement. The dominance of Euro-American agricultural models has led to diminished diversity of foodways, the erasure of traditional practices, and a loss of food sovereignty. In this context, the communities most historically affected by lack of access to healthy and culturally specific foods are the same who have labored to produce food in the U.S.—such as migrant farm workers—and have been dispossessed of and displaced from their native lands. Against Monoculture centers the stories of communities on whose labor the U.S. food system has been built. The works in this exhibition thus represent collective struggle against the logic of monoculture. They present stories of continual resistance to systemic racism and environmental degradation through cultural practice, activism, and mutual aid. Taken together, they demonstrate the ways in which food is a direct link to land and culture and how growing, harvesting, preparing, and sharing food are fundamental creative acts.

Participating artists include: Jackie Amézquita; Paola de la Calle; Beatriz Cortez; gloria galvez; Emily Marchand; Narsiso Martinez; Lina Puerta; Emma Robbins; Sula Bermúdez-Silverman, Hana Ward, and Kate Pincus-Whitney.