Kate Rich: Fair Trade

The research takes place at the intersection of several networks: art, information and food. Its express intention is to use tools of art (production/curation) to investigate how our daily grocery products are articulated, packaged, distributed and delivered.

The first aim is to take a sample grocery item or items into deeper investigation, to better understand its provenance. To explore the opposition of Commons to Commodity proposed by transatlantic historian Peter Linebaugh: that the commodity is the opposite of the commons as it conceals human relations except for the money relation, while the product of the commons is filled with human relations including possibly unpleasant ones. The second interest is with the public diet of cultural entities: to assess how food and drink is considered and served in art and cultural organisations, including their relationships with local and international food suppliers and how these relate to the other activities and core concerns of the organisation. Thirdly, the nomad/resident diet: design prescriptions for survival in the art world via nutritional suggestions for the travelling artist - to promote a continuity between knowledge work and the immediate environment it takes place in. In presenting the research in the context of art, the aim is to redraw the coordinates of the common global grocery product - normally rendered invisible in its background role on supermarket or refrigerator shelves - to restore its essential foreignness and its potential as a conduit for other experience.

Related: http://www.feraltrade.org/