ARCHIVED 2020.
Documenting the growth of urban agriculture and local food systems in several underserved San Diego neighborhoods, including some populated by recent refugees, this interactive multimedia project examines how communities are developing creative responses to the issues of hunger, limited access to healthy food, underemployment, and urban blight. Short video stories narrated by urban gardeners and farmers’ market advocates will be available online; the website and its contents, including a “storymap,” will be accessible by mobile devices through QR coded plaques. A public program during the summer harvest season in 2014 launched the website and provides additional opportunities for community engagement.

Media Arts Center San Diego partnering with Project New Village, Bayside Community Center, Humanities advisor A.L. Anderson-Lazo, Ph.D., and local residents from San Diego’s City Heights, Linda Vista, and Southeastern San Diego communities address the history and present-day growth of urban agriculture and neighborhood scale food systems through location based first person visual stories. The project compiles diverse stories of residents from underserved San Diego urban communities in an online interactive multimedia map to offer a genuine look at where the food system falls short and at the same time to provide a model of empowerment that envisions a healthier community of greater access and equity.

This project is based on and expands upon the research of Food Ways and Food Scapes by A.L. Anderson-Lazo, Ph.D. and Co/LAB.

For more information or to schedule a screening/presentation in your community, please contact Land & Freedom project director Brian Myers,
myersbam(A)gmail.com or follow us on Facebook.

This project was made possible with support from Cal Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. For more information, visit www.calhum.org.

Additional support provided by Kaiser Permanente.

PRESS
Report Back: “Land and Freedom” Film Screening (DC Fair Food)
Land & Freedom: Talking Food Systems – Documenting urban agriculture in San Diego (City Farmer News)
Indiegogo Campaign (26 August 2014 – 25 October 2014)
Press Release (26 August 2014)
Press Release (21 January 2014)