Are you hungry? Are you worried that you won’t be able to remedy your hunger with a trip to the grocery store or a restaurant? For most of us, especially in an affluent town such as San Luis Obispo, the prospect of being unable to satiate our most basic need for survival is not a vital concern; we don’t fear a lack of food, and even if we are low on cash, things are not so dire that Top Ramen will not suffice. Food is a given, not a worry. Or at least, that’s how most of us think.
It might be shocking to learn that the Food Bank in our own town is struggling to meet growing demands to feed the hungry in need. Cathy Enns of the Food Bank Coalition in San Luis Obispo said that although the community has been generous with donations in the past months, there is still a need for help.
In this case, help is coming in an unexpected form: an interactive sculpture. Situated in the middle of the San Luis Obispo Art Center’s current exhibit, Hungry Planet is a cacophony of cans and dry non-perishable goods. Visitors are encouraged to fill the empty rings on the ground with food, symbolizing the feeding of an empty belly.
Enns said that when Assistant Director of the San Luis Obispo Art Center Muara Johnston contacted her with the idea of using the food-themed exhibit to bring awareness to the local hunger problem, it seemed like a natural fit.
“To have exhibits like this brings a whole other dimension to get the word out and to bring the art community to come and see,” Enns said. “We have much more in common when it comes to food than a lot of other things. I think this points that out in a really unique way.”
The exhibit itself features photographs from “Hungry Planet: What the World Eats,” a book by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio. They visited 24 countries to document what 30 families purchased for a week of eating. The photos display each family surrounding a table filled with their week’s worth of consumption. Full of spectacular color and life, the pictures say more about the people in them than you might think.
“They wanted to do something about how we are all united on the planet,” Johnston said. “The oldest social event that one can participate in is eating. Although we may be very culturally different, we’re all the same in that we all have to eat.”
Food, as simple as it seems, can be a symbol of status and socioeconomic and global issues, said Johnston. It can also be a means of power and control.
“They started to look at individual families and then began to bridge out into those greater issues,” she said. “When we heard about it, we were
intrigued not only by how beautiful the photographs were, but also by the statement that it made.”
The photograph featuring an American family is a stark transition from what many of the others portray. Laden with mostly packaged and processed foods, and few fruits and vegetables, it tells a story of convenience and negligence to what some put in their bodies.
“It’s so completely different,” Johnston said. “I think as adults we can garner a sensitivity to what other cultures are doing to survive. It helps us to see how other people live and helps us to understand it is possible to simplify.”
The exhibit will run until March 1, and the creators of the live food sculpture, local artists Carol Paulsen and Stephen Plow, said that they want people to come be a part of the exhibit and help the cause.
“The purpose of the sculpture is to increase the interest in people donating food to the food banks which are very much in need,” Plow said. “It’s a wonderful synopsis for what is going on in the world and how important food is in everyone’s life.”
Paulsen said that the idea of the sculpture allows people to come in and make a direct contribution.
“The circles on the ground are the shadows of all the issues of food that are going on in the world,” she said.
SLO Art Center curator Gordon Fuglie said that when he saw the Hungry Planet show on tour, he immediately “snapped it up.”
“I think we are in a part of the state where agriculture and food awareness is very much in the forefront of discussion,” he said. “It’s a very rich experience.”
Fuglie said that the exhibit teaches how food is a part of our culture and not just a consumer item.
“There are a lot of ways to engage with this exhibition personally and geopolitically,” he said.
Looking around at the word’s hunger issues, it’s hard to imagine that many of the same issues have a home in our own backyard.
“We want people to come and give themselves enough time,” Johnston said.
“There is a lot to look at and read. Don’t come for five minutes. Definitely plan to stay. How can we be addressing the world’s food issues and not address the needs in our own community?”