Food and consumption has been a recurring subject for several of my projects. A previous worked called, Bottled, explored of binge eating, where I documented my over consumption of food. For a couple of months in 2008 I photographed everything I ate and posted on a blog.

Inspired by The Hungry Planet, a book that documents the amount of food and money spend by families all over the world. Considering today’s economy woes I am readjusting my budget. Groceries and dining are the big expenditures. Here in the US and most developed countries, I have access to largest variety of food all year long. This excess lead me to begin exploring the cost of out of season eating. The combination of technology and wealth has provided the market and expectation of the available of seasonal fruit or vegetables all year long. There are some countries that benefit from exporting food all year round. The unsavory side is the labor practices of harvesting and environmental impact of the transportation.

For Consume I took a single dish, the Cobb salad and researched the path(s) of each ingredient from origin to its arrival in New York City. The result is a table installation representing the distance and the carbon impact of each of ingredients of the salads. The installation represents the paths for March. Each week a variation on the Cobb Salad is created depending on the store that the items are purchased. My intent is to explore how my everyday choices could impact beyond my immediate community.

This piece is a first step in a bigger project with the goal of creating a resource where a user chooses a recipe and gets a data visualization of the path and economic cost of ingredient. The will get a recommendation of the best time of year to make the dish. Eventually, people will be able to submit their own recipes and create their own geotagging and tracking for their recipe.

Consume was developed in the winter of 2009 in a residency call Wonder Women. The theme for the residency is Money Money Money!

Exhibitions: