Farming Takes Skill
July 6 — August 12, 2023
Murat Cem Mengüç

Opening Reception: Thursday, July 6th, 7-9 PM

Farming Takes Skill borrows its name from an educational documentary about farming made by Emily Benton Frith in 1954 and preserved in the Prelinger Archives. Frith’s documentary focuses on the transformation from animal to machine labor in farming industry. The show consists of hacked (detourned) videos from archival films, photographs and an interactive seed bank which invites the visitors to grow food for each other. While it takes its cue from the ongoing urban encroachment on areas previously designated for farming, the show’s primary concerns are land, land art and post-urban farming, and it speculates about seed banking, landscape aesthetics and agricultural space in the age of climate change.

Murat Cem Mengüç