A refrigerator is both a private and a shared space. One person likened the question, "May I photograph the interior of your fridge?" to asking someone to pose nude for the camera. Each fridge is photographed "as is." Nothing added, nothing taken away.
Mark Menjivar - http://www.markmenjivar.com/ - make sure to check out his taglines for each photograph, too.
I found this project fascinating. At first I thought this was another artist who photographs well to-do and poorer communities to promote social justice. However, after I went to Mark Menjivar’s website and looked through his collection of photographed refrigerators I really understood this purpose he intended for this collection.
ReplyDeleteAt first, I searched through the images searching for a pattern or meaning. But, after my second time through the photos I noticed and read the captions along with photographs, and then I was more fully able to understand his work. As a read through the short biography, made up of a location age and number of people whom the food in each fridge was meant for, along with a fact about the people who own the fridge, I felt like I was invading people’s personal space. I understand why Menjivar described this project of asking people to have their fridges photographed as if he asked people so pose nude for the camera, and as I looked through the photos a felt a sense of the uncomforted Menjuvar hoped for.
As Menjivar took these photographs he explained, “the more time I spent speaking and listening to individual stories, the more I began to think about the foods we consume and the affects they have on us as individuals and communities.” I wonder if the foods we eat change and/or determine who we become as individuals and which environment we place ourselves in, or does our environment determine what we eat.
For this week’s response to the reading, I chose to focus on A Sand County Almanac’s section on Arizona and New Mexico. This is by far my all-time favorite landscape. I grew up in New York so I understand green hills and plentiful trees and, frankly, those are just really boring. I think the desert is so underrated and really underappreciated for the beautiful scene it is.
ReplyDeleteThere is certainly something to be said about densely wooded areas and the experiences and feelings associated with that locale, but, to me, it is commonplace. The desert is such a mysterious and unknown and attractive destination and for this reason I truly appreciate Aldo Leopold’s observations. Even today what fascinates me about this area is that it still seems so uninhabited and unable to be tamed, which is why I enjoy hearing Leopold’s notes from many years ago when it was even more so this way. I love the way he starts off the section by discussing the politics of means of transportation and how many miles into the vast Arizona landscape all those classes and ranks are forced into elimination. Leopold writes, “It is difficult for this generation to understand this aristocracy of space based upon transport” (123) and it just makes me wish I could have experienced such a time, where pure manpower was all you needed, and all that was allowed, to reach the acme of the mountain. It is so egalitarian and natural, so pure and untouched as I like to fantasize the desert is and always will be.
In another favorite passage of mine from this section, Leopold writes,
On a fair morning the mountain invited you to get down and roll in its new grass and flowers (your less inhibited horse did just this if you failed to keep a tight rein). Every living thing sang, chirped, and burgeoned. Massive pines and firs, storm-tossed these many months, soaked up the sun in towering dignity. Tassel-eared squirrels, poker-faced but exuding emotion with voice and tail, told you insistently what you already knew full well: that never had there been so rare a day, or so rich a solitude to spend it in. (125)
I am not even all that into nature, but how could this not impress you? This wonderful display of nature so separate from the human world is incredibly alluring. The desolate expansive sands and stark mountains are so uniquely different compared to what most of the United States looks like that its beauty is obvious to me. It is beyond me how so many people do not have this same outlook.
This weeks reading I thought was exceptionally beautiful and confusing at the same time. I find it bewildering why someone so connected to nature would be ok destroying it. In the red legs kicking section I became very attached to the bird that he was waiting for. To be honest I did not think he would go through with shooting the bird and when he did I was hurt that he just left it there. I admire his patience to wait around for this bird, but I did not think it was worth it.
ReplyDeleteOne section that I found particularly moving was Marshland Elegy. I liked his comparison of the crane to art. My favorite line was, “Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty,” (96). Although I do not agree that art beings with just the pretty I understood that he was trying to explain how the crane becomes more complex and the true beauty is not seen until you know the crane. I enjoyed learning the history of how the crane became beautiful and how unique it really is.
I also liked the section dedicated to the pigeons. Most people ignore pigeons cause they are ugly and people do not have any sympathy for them. I also thought it was clever how he compared the book pigeons to the real pigeons. It made it more enjoyable to read.
This section from A Sand County Almanac thoroughly discusses the vivid environment of this portion of nature. The language used in these pages I have just read in the Sand County Almanac are extraordinarily grasping and inspiring to me, as the reader. It really drew me into feeling what I truly do believe I would actual feel if I were at the place at that time. I loved the calming, yet eccentric feelings of the natural environment that was portrayed in the texts. Things in nature to me seem to just roll on in a cycle that is a continuous gentle flow. There is just always so much going on in the most miniscule detail that people will net ever get to see, mostly because they wont notice. I learned from this reading that there is so much extraordinary in the ordinary. Even the act of a bird just flying through the sky, or even a short distance, just from one tree to another can be magically when one takes the time to really ponder what has just happened.
ReplyDeleteHumans in a way, especially farmer’s and hunters or any group or individual who works with nature; has kind of intertwined themselves into the cycle. But, at the same time, like it says from pages 101-102; economists point out that money and other human issues that would not normally be involved with nature now are as well. “The old prairie lived by the diversity of its plants and animals, all of which were useful because the sum total of their co-operations and competitions achieved continuity” (107). Human attributes are combining with nature, as pointed out in Sand County. Though, competition is an attribute that plays a role in both the human mindset and animal/natural world and it always has existed in each. And it is now an interesting concept how the two attributes can be combined. -Brynn Kurlan
I first heard of the quote “you are what you eat” when I was starting to learn the food pyramid in elementary school. I was not sure what my teacher was talking about at the time until I got to middle school when we talked about junk food in depth, even then I was still not positive on what that quote really means. Now, presented with Mark Maerjiva’s work, I completely understood the statement.
ReplyDeleteThe caption underneath the photo in the blog website suggests that nothing was taken away or added. It also said that to take a picture of the refrigerator the way it is was equivalent to taking a nude photograph. With each picture, Mark wrote down the person’s job, where the refrigerator is located, number of people in the household, and another interesting fact about the person. I saw a lot of different types of food depending on the person’s job. For instance the bar tender’s fridge is full of take-out boxes and leftover soda cups. This fridge immediately tells me that this person always eats out and saves leftovers a lot. Eating out means that this person might not have the most control over how others are preparing the food, which gave me an image of a rather chubby man or woman.
On the other hand I saw a fridge that belonged to an engineer. It was filled with healthy food such as vegetables, milk, protein, etc. I am sure occupation and wage plays a big part to the choices these people make on of food. It is interesting to me though that the only people that had somewhat a “healthy looking” refrigerator was the engineer and professional eater. If this was the case in America I can understand why so many people turn to fast food. Whether we like it or not, food really is a reflection of who we are.
This week we’ve talked a lot about one of our most important resources: water. This is actually something that I also talked about in my Garbage Paper. Using bottled water is using up a lot of resources that don’t need to be used. In lecture we learned that tap water in North America is cleaner than anywhere else in the world. So using bottled water is a waste of resources such as plastic and even the energy it takes to ship those bottles. Instead it would be so much easier to just buy a reusable water bottle. Personally, I started using a reusable water bottle this year. Not only have a found that I am saving myself so much money by doing so, I am also helping the environment. If I drink 3 bottles of water a day, I am not throwing 3 plastic water bottles into a landfill, which is a trade that I don’t understand why everyone cant make since its so easy.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed talking about the book The Lorax in class because it was such a different view on a book from my childhood. Although I had clearly been told the underlying implications of the book, having an in depth discussion about it really opened my eyes. Cutting down forests and destroying our Earth’s resources to put up stores and restaurants (especially ones that are hurting our environment even more – like fast food chains) is very wrong. Our world can do without that one extra McDonald’s to keep parts of our forests alive and well.
I love coffee. I have been a fan of coffee since the age of 16 and a fan of Starbucks since forever. What flabbergasted me during lecture was that big coffee places like Starbucks grossly under pay the coffee farmers to the point that the trade was just cruel. I always figured that a place like Starbucks would not have a very fare trade with farmers just because I am not used to any big corporation treating any of their workers fair. It just blew my mind that the payment was so vastly under what I thought the farmers where getting.
ReplyDeleteFinally, I understand why Andy Warhol painted all those bananas. I never knew that the banana was not a normal food until the late 60’s. For some reason, I thought bananas where something people always ate but it makes sense that it would be more new then an orange. The United States can grow oranges in the country but I guess they cannot grow bananas? I am confused about oranges being given away during Christmas because that was the only time they could be offered. Wouldn’t they be offered more during the summer and not the winter? Or was it special to get an orange for Christmas because the prices where higher during the winter causing people not to buy oranges unless they where Christmas presents.
Since I haven’t been commenting on the reading I thought I might say a word or two now. For a brief moment, the author speaks about a pigeon wiped out by people but he never goes into detail about the pigeon besides what it ate. I’m glad he didn’t go into further detail about how we managed to kill off an entire type of bird. By not saying how we killed off the bird we are left with the bare fact that we where responsible for killing the bird and we need to be more careful with our actions.
Prior to today, I have not heard about the "The Lorax". I grew up not only reading books that had nothing to do with my childhood, but reading books that I could not assimilate until I was a little older and had experience more things. Somewhere inside of me, I was storing this information that suddenly came out of me at the times when I needed it the most. Ironically, I use to just read books for the fun of it, or because I was interested in the pictures. I had no idea that “The Lorax” was based on Dr. Seuss impression of the environment, or what one could argue the overall view of how people effect the environment. Specifically, cutting down trees.
ReplyDeleteIt’s amazing how there are no limitations on what are media exposes to the people. I’ve never grown to realize that Dr. Seuss actually plays on real life matters. I am far more interested in the propaganda that Dr. Seuss created and what to learn more about the way he construct and visualize his ideas. Although I was against many of the pictorials he was depicting I thought it was indeed very creative to put his own little twist to his stories. I believe that he balances mimicking childhood stories with implying deeper meanings.
“Responsibility for the individual” I believe it is a bold way to handle business. It sort of made me think about George Bush and his terrible way of handling America’s issues then when his term was up, Obama became president and the whole world expected him to just turn things into a miracle. But lecture today was pretty interesting.
Whether or not we all want to believe that being judgmental is a rude and inaccurate habit, we must come to see that some of the parts of our lives display more about us than we could ever realize. While looking through Mark Menjivar’s fridge photography, I found it hard to avoid finding the relationships between the little information given about the owner and the contents of each fridge. While many may follow the idea of “not judging a book by its cover”, I find that the cover page and a few of the other early pages can tell a lot about a person. For instance, many people use their clothing to express themselves and because of this, I have found that a person’s choice of clothing can tell you something about them. Whether this something is that they don’t care about their appearance, that they are ‘preppy’, or that they dress like a ‘jock’ would, a person’s clothing can tell you something about them. In addition, the way a person speaks can give you an idea of their background. Some people have accents, some have perfect grammar, and others do not even speak the same language as you. However, all of these variations help others to see a background that you otherwise may have missed.
ReplyDeleteLike the previously mentioned factors, I found that a simple glance within the fridges of these owners could connect me to their lives. There has never been a better proof of the phrase “you are what you eat,” than what is displayed in this array of photos. The viewer can see the differences in he fridge contents and connect them to the different lives of the owners. Different lives cause people to make the own decisions of what they eat and you can clearly see this in what they store in their fridge. Overall, I found these pictures to be very good indicators as to the owners life and its easy to see that a person can be judged by more than their personality alone.
I found Aldo’s descriptions of a few things in the passage we read extremely interesting and profound. What first got me was his analysis of an atom’s travel from rock back to a depositional environment, chronicling the only changes of state this atom will undergo for millions of years. I was intrigued as I had never thought of an atom this way, after years of biology and geology courses where these things are discussed. The juxtaposition of atom X and atom Y was very easy to understand. He was showing how human processes disrupt our environment down to the smallest of atoms. It can be argued whether or not stopping an atom from returning to the sea hurts the environment, but it is clear to both sides that our actions have effects on things we know nothing about.
ReplyDeleteThe next passage he wrote about that I really liked is when he discusses how he thought Darwin’s Origins of Species should have affected the human race. I agree with him in that humans should have a unique perspective on nature and other organisms. Even if you don’t see it like Leopold, where all organisms are simply on stop on an evolutionary path, it is still clear that during our short time on this planet we should connect with the other living beings that occupy the same point in time as us. His mentioning of the extinction of an animal was equally profound. It is odd to think about how much we mourn passed species when we wanted to either control their populations or get rid of them all together. I guess it connects with what Aldo said, that it shows our superiority over the beasts. We know we have the power to stop threatening species by living sustainably and not infringing on other organisms resources that they need to survive; but we have the power to take what we want and, as eerie as it may sound, to allow to survive what we see fit.
The last passage I took an interest in was when Aldo talks about the removal of wolves from almost every public area around the nation. To a common person without much education in biology or ecology, a wolf is an animal that needs to be contained as they are one of the few animals that could cause humans harm in North America. Someone educated in such fields sees the importance of a top predator. Even with this knowledge, it isn’t easy to say that wolves should be stocked in the local forest preserve to control the excess amounts of deer that come and eat the flower gardens of local homes. Repopulation has occurred in places like Yellowstone. But our advancement into all of their habitats has forced them to retreat to such National Parks, and we are left with environmental degradation as talked about with dustbowls and barren lands due to overgrazing. Finally, the whole of The Sand County Almanac can be summed up in the one sentence about Thoreau, “In wilderness is the salvation of the world.”
I found the photo by Mark Menjivar on this week's topic to be extremely striking. I think that what people keep in their refrigerator is very telling about who they are as a person. Eating habits are something that is deeply ingrained within a person, illustrating their day-to-day habits. The picture shown on the site illustrates a very hectic, time-pressed lifestyle. The leftover containers are disorderly, toppling over on to one another, white boxes blending into more white boxes.
ReplyDeleteI most liked the first chapter "Marshland Elegy" in this week's reading of A Sand County Almanac. An elegy is a mournful poem, a funeral song, a lament for the dead. He talks about how the crane once lived in the marsh, but as the years went on and more people moved in closer, "crops grew poorer, fires deeper, wood-fields larger, and cranes scarcer, year by year," (100). This entire section gently and albeit beautifully describes the downfall of this marsh. Leopold is mourning for the lost land, the lost cranes. The destruction of the camps and the roads too great and irreversible. I especially like the last paragraph; "...the last crane will trumpet his farewell and spiral skyward from teh great marsh. High out of the clouds will fall the sound of hunting horns, the baying of the phantom pack, the tinkle of little bells, and then a silence never to be broken, unless perchance in some far pasture of the Milky Way," (101).
Mark Menjivar’s project completely captivated me and addressed an idea that I had always thought about but never really looked into. Wherever I am living, I always find myself unable to focus on anything if the kitchen area is a mess. This leads to cleaning out the refrigerator and pantries, which then leads to me thinking about how the food that I eat reflects who I am and the lifestyle that I live.
ReplyDeleteMany of the fridge interiors surprised me. The most striking example was the refrigerator that belonged to the community volunteer who was completely blind. It is difficult for many, including me, to keep my refrigerator clean and tidy on a normal day. The refrigerator of the person who woke up at 4pm and slept at 8am daily was shocking to me, because I couldn’t help but think that so many college students led the same lifestyle, going to sleep and waking up late and eating unhealthy take-out food throughout the day.
For the most part, this series of pictures caused me to think about my own lifestyle and gauge how others would judge my character based on just the food in my refrigerator. It made me think more consciously about the food that I choose to eat, whether or not it ends up in the refrigerator. Mark Menjivar’s project was successful in invoking an introspective response from his audience.
The photos of the refrigerator interiors are interesting, but are they too clean?
ReplyDeleteAre we to draw conclusions because the former WW II prisoner of war has a stuffed fridge?
Did years of imprisonment lead to his need for a well stuffed fridge or is his fridge well stuffed
Because this man is now in his 80's and his daughter has just refilled the fridge for the upcoming month? I noted the easy to heat or reheat goods. And while I’m on this hunt for details, I have to ask, where’s the rest of the deer? Deer butcher out in the plus 100 pound department. That's not enough meat is it? I think that the interesting part of this project is NOT the fridge itself. Food is food and people have different tastes. But does the person who ate only doughnuts get the doughnuts for free, so eating is in fact paid for by the job? I’m lead to ask such a question because all I am told is “Custodian/Convenience Store Clerk | Ft. Wayne, IN | 2-Person Household | Ate nothing but donuts for over 3 years.” These little pieces lead to far more interesting stories than what is presented in the photo. Also it’s very hard to draw conclusions when we don't know how often the people shop or how often their fridges look like what is shown. Also where are the fridges of the well to do? Most of these pieces seem to be chosen for the person how owns the fridge than what resides inside.
Perhaps the approach taken by photographer Peter Menzel and writer Faith D'Aluisio for their book, Hungry Planet: What the World Eats is better. They traveled the world and photographed a family and their food for a week. It gives one more information and in terms of looking at how great an impact food is in our lives, is more interesting.
For the readings this week in the Sand County Almanac there were several specific passages that I found to be very interesting. He covered a wide variety of ideas and terrains in this section of the book and it was nice a change of pace from the beginning. I found that I could make more universal connections to his points and methods for relaying messages.
ReplyDeleteOne section in which I was particularly attracted to the narrative and imagery was the passage about thinking like a mountain and the population decrease in wolves. It was an interesting point of view that I had not considered before and I felt that putting it in the terms that he did illuminated aspects of conservation that would have otherwise gone unknown to me. I have visited and traveled through Arizona and its landscape was very moving to me. It was interesting to read the perspective of a mountain as well as to hear about how the mountains got their names from the people who have traversed that terrain and the events that occurred on the slopes and hillsides.
Another passage that I enjoyed was his description about how two atoms travel from place to place and how different animals and plants take part in this process. It demonstrated that there is more to an ecosystem than meets the eye and to alter one part would be to alter the entire chain of events. It was a very descriptive method for showing this idea and also enjoyable for the audience as well.
One topic from the discussions that I found particularly interesting was the idea of water being one of the most important resources available to man. I found this very interesting, because while it is true that humans need water in to survive, it is also one of the most fascinating compounds in the world from a chemical standpoint. Water is able to exist in all three states of mater, and can move back and forth through these states of matter. If there are any other compounds on this earth that are able to do this, then I am not aware of them, and I’m sure that they are very few. Additionally, water molecules are cohesive, so they inherently attract to one another, and, in the liquid state, water takes the shape of its container. I do find water to be scientifically amazing, and I also realize that it is an essential part of life, which is why I find it so incredible that we, as Americans take water for granted, without ever thinking about where it comes from. This portion of the lecture was quite relevant in my eyes, because I realize that I am guilty of many of the shortcomings that were discussed. Even in the beginning of the lectures, when we took the survey, very few people were able to identify where their water came from. This is somewhat of a scary thought, because when one doesn’t even know where their water is coming from, they have no idea of what could possibly be put into that water which they will then consume.
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