Seeds of Hope

(I updated the photos in this post and added one with the seed jars).

It is hard to believe that I've almost finished my masters. I have one month till my defence, three weeks till the exhibition install. I'm still printing, not exactly frantically, but steadily every day to finish my last piece. Here is a picture of the piece in progress. Since this print will be free-hanging in the centre of one of the gallery spaces, I'm printing on both sides. I'm still working on the back and I might make a few changes to the front yet (I updated the photo and it's the final version of the front now). It's been an interesting challenge printing on this scale. The central paper banner measures a little over 3 feet x 8 feet (98cm x 240cm), but I can move the printing plates and the paper quite freely on the press bed, although it is quite cumbersome. Fortunately the paper is quite sturdy and has withstood all the rigours of dampening and printing (Japanese Shoji Paper).

Most of the work in my thesis exhibition is a bit dark and melancholy, dealing with environmental, social, and economic issues of industrial agriculture in Paraguay, the rapid disappearance of the dry forests due to deforestation, dispossession and migration of indigenous people and peasant farmers, etc. One of the big topics I also looked at and which ultimately inspired this piece is food sovereignty, which encompasses access to local foods, the right to grow food through subsistence farming, as well as the right to save seeds. I wanted to create a piece that was a bit more hopeful, and the image of a seed with the potential for growth and a symbol for life preserved in a seed jar emerged. I commissioned my husband, Terry Hildebrand, who is a potter, to make these jars inspired by the forms of ancient earthenware seed jars from indigenous peoples in the Chaco. However, I also wanted to give the jars a more contemporary look, so Terry glazed the porcelain with a clear shiny glaze. I put decals with screen printed images of seed germination cycles of beans, squash, and corn - traditional staple foods - on each jar. 

The hands symbolize the collective effort needed to fight for the right to save seeds, to maintain seed saving traditions, and the collective effort to produce food in a sustainable way. Several of the hand gestures suggest the act of planting seeds (see detail below) and in conjunction with the imagery on the jars the passing on of the knowledge of planting to future generations. In that sense the seeds jars represent vessels of hope.

One of my advisors pointed out another possible meaning of the hands: in some regions in Brazil, people hang wax-cast body parts on the ceilings of a chapel to pray for healing of certain ailments. I love that image and in that sense, the hands in this piece are a prayer for healing, which works beautifully in the context of the rest of my exhibition.

Updated Feb. 2, 2018. Below is an installation view from my thesis exhibition last year.

FootPrints at JVS Project Space - New York

Two of my prints are on display in New York at the JVS Project Space from Jan. 15 - March 5. They are the two 'Best in Show' award winning pieces at the FootPrint International Exhibition from the Center for Contemporary Printmaking this past summer (not shown in this picture).

Global Matrix IV

Global Matrix IV is opening next week. Two of my prints are in this exhibition and a detail of one of them made it onto the invitation!

Charles Brand Printing Press

As of yesterday I am the very proud owner of a Charles Brand printing press. I bought it from a retired professor in Minnesota, who also sold me hundreds of cans of ink, printing blankets, and a nice 4" x 16" relief roller. The press bed is 32" x 52", which is perfect for me; it doesn't take up too much space, but I'm still able to print on oversized sheets of paper. The press has been in storage for a while and the roller got a bit rusty, so once I want to start using it I'll give the press a little makeover and it'll be good as new. I'm just so thrilled to have the equipment for my own future studio! Once I'm finished grad school, I'll have to start looking for a studio space to house all these treasures. This was one of those moments, where you just know in your gut it's the right thing to do.

We borrowed a big truck and rented a forklift for easy loading and transport. Thanks to all the people we have depended on to make this happen!

The Soy Field

The Soy Field. 
Section of the work in progress.
Etching, digital satellite image. 
2016. 

As part of the work for my thesis exhibition I've been working on another large print. The Soy Field consists of a grid of prints that as a whole form a large scale field of soy plants. I combine my own grid with satellite imagery of regions in the Paraguayan Chaco were soy plantations are cropping up. I again work with layers of imagery to portray a kind of take-over by the soy plants of the land. The scale of the whole piece, which will fill a 30 foot wall (approximately 10m), also gives a sense of that take-over through its overwhelming size. The form of the piece embodies the fragmentation of the land and resembles the grid of fields as seen from an aerial view. I add different layers of information about the issues of soy plantations in individual tiles, such as satellite imagery of soy fields in Paraguay that show the clearing of forests, patterns of plants that evoke the mechanization and engineering of agriculture, and red droplet patterns that portray the heavy application of toxins in monocultures. (See details below). An overlay of etched soy plant imagery pulls all the different tiles together to form one large field. 

Here a snippet from some of my research. The data I cite here is from a dossier called Con la Soja al Cuello by BASE, a Paraguayan Social Investigation publication, which in turn got their data from government documents and census data:

Aside from cattle ranching, soy is the second largest industry in Paraguay. 62% of agriculture land is used for soy, 6% for mandioc, beans, sweet potatoes and other produce for local consumption (the rest are other export crops). 96% of soybeans grown in PY are destined for export for livestock to maintain meat-security in western countries. The main slogan of agribusinesses is the modernization of agriculture and the eradication of world hunger. However, in my research I read again and again that modernized agriculture is by no means the better agriculture and world hunger is made worst from the displacement of peasant farmers who loose access to their own food production, many of whom end up in the slum belts of the cities. Peasants and small-scale farmers equal 1/3 of the world's population, but they make 2/3 of the world's food producers. 

The Soy Field.

Detail. 30cm x 30cm.

Etching, Digital Satellite Image. 

The Soy Field.

Detail. 30cm x 30cm.

Etching.

The Soy Field.

Detail. 30cm x 30cm.

Etching.

New Work Website

My website needs an overhaul, but until I finish my MFA I fear I won't have time for that. In the meanwhile, here's a link to a UofAlberta online gallery where you can see my more recent work.

2nd Place at 2nd New York International Miniature Print Exhibition

I won the 2nd Place at the Mini Print exhibition! How very exciting. You can read more about the exhibition and the piece in the previous blog post.