Art in the Libraries

Food Justice in Appalachia: Call for Content

An exhibit by WVU Libraries in partnership with the WVU Food Justice Lab and the WVU Center for Resilient Communities.

Exhibition Dates:

Online Launch: August 2021

Print exhibition at WVU Downtown Campus Library: August 2021-June 2022

Who can submit? This call is open to anyone who eats. We invite community members, food system workers, artists, practitioners, students and scholars to submit art, photography, videography, creative or other writing, recipes highlighting their relationship to food, the foodways that shape their identities, or their understanding of the food system at different scales. We are especially interested in pieces that highlight concepts of food justice, food sovereignty and community food security.

About: The production and distribution of food shapes landscapes, defines economic systems and informs cultural practices. Over the past fifty years, the corporate capture of our food system has reinforced gender, race and class inequities in fields and processing factories, kitchens and grocery stores, between households and across neighborhoods. Drawing on critical scholarship in the fields of food justice and food sovereignty this exhibit shines a light on the uneven distribution of benefits and burdens in the food system particularly its expression across Central Appalachia. Artists, story-tellers and scholars and all will highlight the intersecting values that shape our foodways through the lens of regional food activists working to address hunger and build alternative food futures through various media in this collaboratively curated exhibition.

The WVU Food Justice Lab and WVU libraries will collaboratively curate artistic,educational and textual content for the exhibit on themes including, but not limited to:

• Race, Racism and Food Justice
• Labor in the Food System
• Hunger, Food and Nutrition Policy
• Uneven Food Environments
• Land Access, Biodiversity and Climate
• Youth and Food Justice
• Community Food Security
• Appalachian Food Heritage: Identity and Community
• Self-Provisioning: Hunting,Gardening and Foraging
• Appalachian Food Futures

Exhibit Designs: The panels will include reproduced artworks and creative thematic design with the content accepted to visualize ideas and encourage visitors to pause and contemplate the messages of each section. Photographs, drawings, and quotes about each focus, as well as philosophical questions, and minimal technological resources when available, will give visitors a fuller understanding of the large concept, underscoring the commonalities and cultural distinctions within the broad theme of Food Justice.

Programming and publishing opportunities: We will coordinate presentations, panels, tours or talks around the exhibit, depending on the work included. Moreover, the finished work may be included in an exhibition pamphlet and published online through the Research Repository @ WVU, West Virginia University's digital repository. The Research Repository provides a permanent online home for exhibition materials, and allows them to be viewed worldwide and cited as valuable contributions to the scholarly record.

Partnership/Collaborative opportunities: To cross promote departments, programs, institutes, projects, etc.: If your department, program or organization would be interested in co-sponsoring the exhibit and programming, a modest amount would help us do this; and your logo and name would be included on the main exhibition concept piece and display, and all marketing materials.

Submission Guidelines

To submit your content for consideration, please submit the application form here. said form requires the following:

Description of content: A summary or creative interpretation of your research, work, organization initiatives, etc. that relates to Food Justice (500 words max, excluding bibliographic material).

For visual or creative submissions: Attach up to 4 .jpgs labeled with lastname_Exhibit theme1_1. Include information below including title, media, size, and 3-4 sentence description of the works as they relate to a Food Justice area of thought. Presentation, performance or other program submissions: A summary of your idea, how it relates to Food Justice, and resources needed (space, equipment, etc., 500 words max).

Timeline

Deadline: December 31, 2020

Rolling Deadline: January 1-February 1, 2021

Response: January 1-February 1, 2021

Work sent by (if finished work not in submission):June 1, 2021

Exhibition dates: Online and print: August 10, 2021-June 1, 2022

Selected works will be included in the print exhibition that will run August 2021 through June 2022 on the main floor of the WVU Downtown Campus Library in Morgantown, WV, which receives up to 4,000 visitors daily. The exhibit will also become a digital exhibit living on the WVU Libraries' website and archived on The Research Repository at WVU*.

Questions? Questions: Lead Curator: Sally Brown Deskins, WVU Libraries' Exhibits Coordinator, 304.293.0369, email

Application form here:

Start form

Scholarly Consultants:

• Joshua Lohnes Food Policy Research Director
• Emily Tingler Graduate Research Assistant
• Information on Art in the Libraries
• Information on WVU Food Justice Lab

Get inspired with these food justice resources on this LibGuide!

Check it out

*If you are accepted, by submitting your entry you give WVU Libraries the right to publish your images for publicity purposes for the exhibition (All credits will be included). We may ask select artists to provide higher resolution jpegs suitable for publishing. Artist /designer retains the right to use the artwork images in their portfolios and for other personal causes. You (the author(s) or copyright owner(s)) also grant to the West Virginia University Board of Governors on behalf of the West Virginia University Libraries the non-exclusive right to reproduce, translate (as defined below), and/or distribute your submission (including the abstract and metadata) worldwide in any medium or format and royalty-free, including, but not limited to, publication over the internet. If you accept this license, you (or the copyright owner) still retain the copyright to your work. You agree that the WVU Libraries may translate the submission to any medium or format, known now or in the future, for the purpose of preservation. WVU Libraries may also cut your submission for exhibition integration; contributors will be contacted for cohesion if this is the case. You agree that the WVU Libraries may keep more than one copy of this submission for purposes of security, back-up, and preservation. You represent that the submission is your original work, and/or that you have the right to grant the rights contained in this license. You also represent that your submission does not, to the best of your knowledge, infringe upon anyone's copyright and agree to indemnify and hold WVU Libraries harmless from any claims of copyright infringement based on your submissions. If the submission contains material for which you do not hold copyright, you represent that you have obtained the unrestricted permission of the copyright owner to grant the WVU Libraries the rights required by this license, and that such third-party owned material is clearly identified and acknowledged within the text or content of the submission. You agree that the WVU Libraries may make such changes to the item's 'metadata (i.e. descriptive information) as deemed necessary by WVU Libraries staff to make the item more accessible.