Farmer's Market

Weeks before the exhibition opened, students set up a booth at the Cal State LA Farmers Market. Visitors to the booth could make their own “seed bombs”, and Mass Commute stickers were given away to encourage alternative forms of transportation ranging from carpools to skateboards. Seed paper announcements for the show were given to viewers, and these could be planted later.

Demonstrations/Performance

When the show opened, an afternoon event was planned to reach out to the university population.

• Ryan Meehan helped participants try their hand at natural dyeing, and explained how local plants transform cotton fibers.
• Colin Ryan demonstrated his backpack-lab, Genesis Project Environmental Stabilization.
• Visitors made their own seed bombs with Cristina Solis Bracamontes
• "Where Fashion Meets Zero Waste" was organized by Alex Lucero with wearable projects by Fashion and Textile students, under the mentorship of Professor Carole Frances Lung.

Speakers

The exhibit events continued to seek active involvement from visitors. During the show, there were two presentations by highly inventive individuals who are active in solutions to environmental issues and social justice.

CAROLE FRANCES LUNG

Professor Carole Frances Lung presented the slide talk, "Soft Guerilla, Textile Activism of Frau Fiber". Carole is an artist, activist, and scholar living in Long Beach, CA. Through her alter ego Frau Fiber, she utilizes a hybrid of playful activism, cultural criticism, research and spirited crafting of one-of-a-kind garment production performances She investigates the human cost of mass production and consumption, addressing issues of value and time through the thoroughly hand-made construction and salvaging of garments.

Her performances have been exhibited at Jane Addams Hull House Museum; Craft and Folk Art Museum; Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland; Sullivan Galleries, School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Ben Maltz Gallery, OTIS College of Art and Design, Los Angeles; Catherine Smith Gallery, Appalachian State University, North Carolina; and the Ghetto Biennale, Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. Publications about her work include Chicago Arts News, American Craft Council: Shaping the Future of Craft, Art in America, and Art Papers. She has lectured at Museum of Contemporary Art Denver; Feminism and Co series, Craftivism; Creativity and Ingenuity Symposium, Haystack Mountain School of Craft; and, the Textile Society of America symposium in Washington, D.C. She has been awarded the Kohler Arts and Industry Residency, Craft Creativity and Design Center Grant, CSULA creative leave (2014), creative mini grants (2013, 2014), nomination for the Louis Comfort Tiffany award, At the Edge Gallery 400 Award, and Fred A. Hillbruner Artist Book Fellowship. Carole currently maintains the Institute for Labor Generosity Workers and Uniforms, Frau Fiber’s headquarters and experimental factory, in the Art X complex in downtown Long Beach She is Associate Professor in the Department of Art at California State University Los Angeles.

RON FINLEY

Armed with a shovel, some soil and seeds, Ron Finley has come to be known as the “renegade gardener,” and his unexpected tactics have made him one of L.A.’s most widely known activists.

Frustrated by his community’s lack of access to fresh, organic food, Finley inadvertently started a revolution when he turned the parkway in front of his South Central L.A. home into an edible garden in 2010. Ron’s goal was simple; bring healthy food to an area where there was none, making him see first hand how gardens build community and change peoples lives. This experience blossomed into a quest to change how we eat and to teach youth that they have the capacity to design their own lives. Based in LA, Ron is now working on the The Ron Finley Project, which has ignited a horticultural revolution worldwide. Finley now speaks at global conferences and in classrooms regularly, spreading his gardening gospel wherever he’s invited. He wants the world to know that if you change your food, you change your life!