Food & the Public Sphere

Lucy + Jorge Orta are a collaborative practice that focuses on social and ecological issues, employing a diversity of media - drawing, sculpture, installation, couture, painting, silkscreen, photography, video, light and performance - to realise major bodies of work. Amongst their most emblematic series are: Refuge Wear / Body Architecture: portable minimum habitats bridging architecture and dress; HortiRecycling / 70 x 7 The Meal: the local and global food chain and the ritual of community dining; Nexus Architecture: alternative modes of establishing the social link; The Gift: a metaphor for the heart and the biomedical ethics of organ donation; OrtaWater / Clouds: water scarcity and the problems arising from pollution and corporate control; Antarctica: international human rights and freer international migration; and Amazonia: the value of the natural environment to our daily lives and to our survival. n recognition of their contribution to sustainability, the artists received the Green Leaf Award in 2007 for artistic excellence with an environmental message, presented by the United Nations Environment Programme in partnership with the Natural World Museum at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway. In 2013 the artists' monumental Meteoros - Clouds was selected for the inaugural Terrace Wires public art commission for St Pancras International in London.Since 2011 Nigel Prince is executive director of Vancouver's Contemporary Art Gallery. His previous collaborations include, curator of the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham (UK), working with the Power Plant in Toronto (Canada), in addition to the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich (Germany); the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam (Holland); the Venice Biennale; and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. He has launched many Canadian artists on the international scene, including Marcel Dzama, Steven Sherer, and Roy Arden.Ellen Lupton is curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City and director of the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore. An author of numerous books and articles on design, she is a public-minded critic, frequent lecturer, and AIGA Gold Medalist.