3 West display case. November 2024-March 2025. Produced with Andrea Kepsel.

Andrea Kepsel andI produced an exhibit titled The Politics of Food to reveal how deeply political our food systems truly are. Far from being a neutral or purely personal matter, food serves as a powerful lens for understanding power, identity, culture, economics, and global relations. This exhibit explored key dimensions of this complex terrain, including:

• Food Policy: How government decisions on subsidies, trade agreements, agricultural regulations, and nutrition programs shape what ends up on our plates — and who benefits.
• Food Sovereignty: The growing movement for communities, especially marginalized and Indigenous groups, to reclaim control over their food systems, seeds, and agricultural practices against corporate and global pressures.
• Gastrodiplomacy: The strategic use of cuisine as soft power in international relations — from nation-branding through signature dishes to food as a tool for cultural exchange and geopolitical influence.
• Gastronativism: The rise of food-based cultural protectionism, where culinary traditions become battlegrounds for identity, nationalism, and resistance to globalization.

Andrea had worked with a grad student in Human Nutrition and they sent an email expressing their appreciation for the exhibit.