Producing

The land and water in and around today’s five boroughs once provided more than enough food to sustain the Native communities who lived here. The bounty took new form as European settlers took over the land, dramatically intensified the cultivation of the soil, and turned to manufacturing food at scale. By the end of the 19th century, New York City was a major center of food industries ranging from sugar refining to brewing, distilling, and candy production.

The growth of regional, national, and global trading networks eventually made it possible for New Yorkers to outsource their food production from the city’s borders and deindustrialization sent manufacturing elsewhere. Today, an emergency like Hurricane Sandy or the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic quickly reveals the vulnerabilities of a system in which local food sellers keep only four to five days of food in stock.

Thousands of entrepreneurs, activists, designers, and community members are now urging us to rethink where our food comes from. Intriguing approaches to creating food locally include community gardens, farming in saline water, indoor and rooftop farming, and the creative use of produce and edible byproducts that would otherwise go to waste.

As New Yorkers consider the ongoing impact of world events—the pandemic, the climate crisis, and food disruption brought about by war abroad—they are creatively redesigning food systems to be both flexible and resilient.

 

Pedestal:

Jan Mun
BeeSpace: To Go
2018–Ongoing
Honey bees, wax, and wood
Collection of the artist

We have a special relationship with bees, who represent a link between human culture and the natural world. We “keep” bees for honey, but they aren’t fully domesticated. Simultaneously, we think of them as “social creatures”—a model even for human society.

Today, our agricultural system depends on honey bees to pollinate crops. But over the past decade, honey bee colonies have been disappearing at alarming rates and many other species of native pollinators are dwindling due to human impact on the environment. The plight of pollinators has become one of the most potent reminders of our interconnectedness with other species and ecosystems.

“BeeSpace: To Go is a portable observation hive for honey bees. The bees are arranged to include the round and waggle dances used to communicate the location of nectar and housing. As part of the ProfileUS: Invasive Species series, they act as mediators for bio-politics, immigration, and populations at risk.” – Jan Mun

 

From Right to Left:

Uli Westphal

Cultivar Series – Zea mays II
2018 (2022)

Cultivar Series – Cucurbita I
2013 (2022)

Cultivar Series – Phaseolus vulgaris I
2014 (2022)

Prints
Courtesy of the artist

"Since the dawn of agriculture, we have developed a seemingly infinite diversity of locally adapted crop cultivars. The industrialization of our food system has led to the displacement and extinction of these plants. With them we not only lose their genetic plasticity, but also a living cultural and culinary heritage.” – Uli Westphal

 

War

Hunger is a weapon of war, as old as it is cruel. During the War of Independence, when New York City was occupied by the British for seven years, it was at the receiving end of a rebel effort to blockade goods from entering the city, food among them. In another traumatic example, the War of 1812 cut off the city’s meat supply. Food has also served to mobilize populations during armed conflicts, imbuing home production and rationing with an ethos of patriotic self-sacrifice for a larger aim.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a stark and painful reminder of how war can bring hardship, and even hunger, to millions far away from the front, and of the importance of resiliency and stability for local food supplies.

From Left:

Edward Meyer
Children’s school victory gardens on First Avenue between 35th and 36th Streets
1944
Reproduction from original negative
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, LC-DIG-fsa-8d35490

During the Second World War (1939–1945), New York City had hundreds of thousands of gardens that yielded millions of pounds of food for a city experiencing significant food shortages. President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared “food will win the war,” spurring urbanites to grow their own food on apartment terraces, empty and private lots, and public spaces.

Herbert Andrew Paus
“The Woman’s Land Army of America”
c. 1917
Color lithograph (Reproduction)
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Mr. John W. Campbell, 43.40.128

Historically, women have been an invisible and underrecognized force behind both the farming and domestic labor that happens to keep us fed. This lithograph, dating from the First World War (1914–1918), illustrates the role that women played while men were fighting in faraway lands. Women led the organizing and cultivation of thousands of urban gardens during both World Wars.

 

Case Covers:

Hans Global Textile
Seawool
2022
Oyster shells
Courtesy of the maker

As oysters are a popular and abundant food in Taiwan, Hans Global Textile began partnering with domestic oyster farmers in 2014 to collect and clean discarded shells. The shells are then ground into a powder before being combined with other plastic waste to create Seawool fabric.

 

Case:

Office of Price Administration

War ration stamps and tokens
1943
Paper and ink
Museum of the City of New York. Manuscripts and Ephemera Collection, F2015.18.246

War ration books
1943
Paper and ink
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Ms. Stephanie Schwartz Hausfater, 2003.18.1D, 2003.18.1J

The rationing of food has been a common occurrence during times of war. These tokens and stamps bear witness to one of the ways New York City experienced the Second World War (1939–1945): the rationing of essential food items such as milk, corn, rice, wheat, and coffee.

 

North Terrace

Asa Pingree
Lobster Trap Collection
2022
Metal
Courtesy of the maker

"Wanting to pay homage to the hardworking coastal Maine fishing community, I decided to work with local manufacturers to design a line of objects and furniture. Maine is a never-ending source of inspiration for me, the multicolored lobster traps ubiquitous on the island where I grew up informed my visual sensitivity.” – Asa Pingree

Tom Fruin
Bombora House
2020
Plexiglass and steel
Collection of Michael Gurl
The Bombora House is built almost completely of recycled plastic, metal, and street signs; another example that waste is only in the eye of the beholder. The artist “quilts” waste to create beauty, in this case a house not unlike the greenhouses seen around the city’s community gardens.

 

Oysters

Before the arrival of Europeans, the city’s bay was home to half of the world’s oyster beds. New York’s Indigenous people, the Lenape, left countless large mounds of empty oyster shells— “shell middens”—all over the New York City area, archeological markers of Native American life.

In the early 19th century, oysters remained abundant and cheap, and New Yorkers and visitors alike could not get enough of them. The city had oyster saloons and bars, oyster houses and cellars. One of the city’s most successful restaurants during the 1820s was managed by the abolitionist Thomas Downing, a free Black man who hosted bankers and politicians to feast on oysters in his restaurant while his son George managed a stop on the Underground Railroad from the basement.

By the late 1920s, water pollution and overfishing caused the sharp decline of oysters in New York City. Today, there are ongoing efforts to re-introduce them into the region, as oyster reefs can mitigate the destructive power of storm surges, while also helping to filter water pollution.

Clockwise From Far Left:

Henry Hebbard & Co. for Tiffany & Co.
Oyster ladle
Post–1862
Silver
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Mrs. Edward C. Moen, 62.234.9

Charles Frederick William Mielatz
Oyster Market near Christopher Street
1898
Lithograph (Reproduction)
Museum of the City of New York. From the Arthur H. Scribner Collection, 41.62.20

Jennifer Monroe
Oyster Spoon
2022
Isomalt, black food coloring, and shellac
Courtesy of the Jennifer Monroe

“Oyster Spoon is part of a series of pulled sugar utensils that resemble functional objects but are rendered effectively useless by their material and their embellishments. Pulling sugar is a technique of stretching and shaping hot cooked sugar with the hands to incorporate tiny air bubbles, which lends it a natural iridescent sheen.” – Jen Monroe

Union Porcelain Works
Oyster plate
c. 1862–1922
Porcelain
Private collection

 

Pedestal:

Stefani Bardin
Spooky Action at a Distance
1960s (2019)
Wood, metal, and glass
Property of Stefani Bardin

“In my ongoing project Spooky Action at a Distance, I have partnered with celebrated chef Victoria Blamey to use quantum entanglement as a design to playfully but rigorously examine/illustrate our anthropogenic impact on the food system by highlighting crops that play a pivotal role in planetary stewardship.” – Stefani Bardin

Place a nickel into the coin slot and turn the knob to the right. Open the silver door to retrieve your “gumball”! 

 

Farming

For most of its history, much of New York City was farmland, and livestock grazing was common. Still, New Yorkers have almost always preferred to do things other than farming. The 1811 plan for a street grid layout signaled the triumph of urban development over farmland in Manhattan. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 made it possible to establish a more reliable relationship with farms deep in America’s heartland. The country and the world became New York City’s farm. Today, only around 300 of the city’s 200,000 acres are farmland, none on the island of Manhattan.

This dependence carries great risks, as the disruptions to food supply during the COVID-19 pandemic have shown. Local food production could also help address the problems of “food deserts,” areas where thousands—mostly New Yorkers of color—lack access to healthy nutritious food.

New Yorkers are experimenting with all aspects of a new agriculture, from addressing long-standing systemic inequities and racism in the farming industry to creating high-tech rooftop farms. These ideas are a clear and nearby reminder that alternative food futures are possible.

Above Left:

Hatuey Ramos Fermín
East Harlem tote bag
2011
Cotton
Courtesy of an East Harlem resident

East Harlem’s Community Supported Kitchen (CSK) was led by Terry Rodríguez, a local chef and activist. The kitchen offered its members healthy, locally-grown, tasty, home-style dinners, traditional recipes, and the social benefits of group meals at a convenient community location for a low-budget price. 

Far Left:

Naima Penniman
Foresight
2018
Acrylic on wood
Collection of Soul Fire Farm

Foresight is the dedication painting for Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on Land authored by the artist’s sister, Leah Penniman. The book is a how-to guide on acquiring and cultivating land using traditional African wisdom, in an effort to address the systemic racism that has traditionally plagued America’s farming industry. Naima and Leah are co-founders and leaders of Soul Fire Farm in Petersburg, New York, the project at the root of Farming While Black.

“I created this painting to honor our visionary African ancestors who braided seeds into their hair before being forced to board slave ships as an act of resilience for an uncertain future. The black-eyed pea is a sacred food indigenous to Africa that has become a staple throughout the diaspora—a symbol of prosperity, blessings, and fertility. We, their descendants, have inherited the seeds and a commitment to pass them on.” – Naima Penniman

Table:

Suzanne Anker
Twilight
2016
Petri dishes, seeds, flowers, beans, and spices
Collection of the artist

“Including an array of pollinators, botanical specimens and foodstuffs, Twilight points to the colony collapse of bees and the alterations of genomes produced through genetic engineering. Our food supply is under threat by changes in climatic conditions and a decrease in the number of beneficial insects necessary to produce many of the foods we eat." – Suzanne Anker

 

Community Gardens

One of the first community gardens in New York City was El Jardín del Paraíso on East 4th Street, between Avenues C and D. It was established in 1962 by Puerto Rican migrants tired of the abandoned lots that were beginning to plague their neighborhood as New York City spiraled into decades of disinvestment, fiscal crisis, and fires.

The movement was spread in the 1970s by activists like the “Green Guerrillas” and today there are some 600 community gardens in the five boroughs, although the Lower East Side still has the most of any neighborhood. Many of these spaces are led by women. In addition to growing food, they are recreational spaces for community gatherings, leisure, and urban healing, as well as places of radical experimentation by food activists in the city.

Center of Gallery:

Mary Mattingly
Biosphere
2015 (2022)
Aluminum drywall studs, fabric, plants, wood, saline water, and reclaimed plastic
Courtesy of the artist

“Biosphere illustrates a living system representing food, water, humans, and millions of microbes working in unison. This sculpture maintains plants that can tolerate salt water as a proposal to prepare New York for growing crops amidst rising sea levels. Living systems that are small and contained can become accessible ways to comprehend large-scale ecosystems that are often too big to see.” – Mary Mattingly

Screen:

Brooklyn Grange Rooftop Farm
Run time: 00:56 min
Courtesy of Brooklyn Grange Rooftop Farm

Brooklyn Grange is the largest rooftop soil farm in the world, growing over 100,000 pounds of vegetables every year. They promote sustainable urban living by building green spaces, hosting educational programming and events, and widening access to locally grown produce in New York City communities. Their agricultural practices center around the belief that fresh, healthy food should be a right shared by all.

By Windows:

Field Meridians with LinYee Yuan, Lily Consuelo Saporta Tagiuri, George Bliss, John Tagiuri, and artwork by Public Assistants
Solstice Kitchen
2022
Found materials from New York City
Courtesy of LinYee Yuan 

“What should the future of food be in Crown Heights? Solstice Kitchen is a provocation to spark conversation around how, as neighbors, we might design more equitable access to culturally appropriate foods. By sparking curiosity and imagination, we hope to plant seeds and find collaborators for future projects that strengthen community economics and food sovereignty in Central Brooklyn.” – LinYee Yuan

LinYee Yuan, Marisa Aveling, Eric Hu, Jena Myung and Matthew Tsang for MOLD Magazine
Your Mouth Has Power Manifesto
2019
Courtesy of LinYee Yuan