Access to all kinds of Tools

I am currently listening to Michael Pollan talking about his open letter to the next president. Pollan thinks that our current relationship with food and how we grow it is too dependent on fossil fuels. He suggests more locally grown produce, crop diversity and growing practices based on utilizing the energy of the sun versus our current petroleum-based system. Pollan’s book, Botany of Desire, discusses the history of 4 plants among them is the apple. The apple chapter discusses growing practices, apple agriculture, and the history of American folkloric hero, Johnny Appleseed.

Two artists, Katie Hargrave and Amber Ginsburg, have been doing their own investigations into the shifting history of Appleseed and the apple, which John Chapman, later dubbed Appleseed, helped spread throughout the Midwest. Hargrave and Ginsburg are collaborators currently working on two long term projects about the origins, implications, and manifestations of the myth of Johnny Appleseed in American culture. Through this unfolding investigation they touch on subjects of national identity, food security, local food, memory, diaspora, and place. I recently had the opportunity to talk with them via email about this project.

Hargrave and Ginsburg are exploring and embodying the implications of the mobile Appleseed mythology in Johnny Appleseed (As American As Apple Pie) and Johnny Appleseed (Two Trees). For the former, they not only  created an exhibition, but they have been eating an apple a day since September 27, 2008. For Two Trees, they are planting apple trees, one from seed and a second from a graft of what is rumored to be the last remaining tree planted by Johnny Appleseed. They chose both seed and graft to represent the multiple interpretations of the Appleseed history, as well as the different growing techniques for apple trees. Hargrave and Ginsburg work through dense history and layered cultural meanings with poetic gestures, grounding their ideas in exchange and discussion. The moment of exchange and sharing can be via food, a game, or planting a tree. The edited interview follows after the jump.

Read More »