Decay

In our final unit, Birth, the freshman class was assigned to create a poster symbolizing the food system and how it affected, affects, and will affect us, and the environment. My group decided to create an art piece symbolizing the third unit Decay, which explained how technology has affected the way people eat. With that we also chose 3 keywords that explained this time of history well. The most challenging part for my group was drawing it out, but we overcame that when we realized that we don’t necessarily have to have a lot of drawing talent in order to show our hard work and understanding. We all are proud of how our art piece came out. We all helped each other when one needed help. When the class is finished we will put all posters together, to represent the four units, Life, Death, Decay, and Birth. When we put them together, it will represent the new understanding we have about the food system.

RD,JR,AMK. Photography. Decay.2014. Chicago Illinois

Our poster represents the third unit, Decay. In this unit our class learned about the industrialization of food, the American diet, and the food industry. The unit is called Decay because we studied how technology has influenced the way people are eating. We illustrated the American diet, the food industry, and the Green Revolution. We represented the American diet by drawing a globe and a conveyor belt. The globe symbolizes how most of the world relies on fast food, or more specifically McDonald’s. The conveyor belt represents our food system, and the distribution process that animals and our food have to go through. We then drew a factory where our food is processed. The man outside the factory is not actually planting flowers, but painting them out. He represents how the nation puts a “band aid” to cover the truth on how our food gets to our table. The truck shows how the final step in the food industry is to finally ship out all the food. From the factory the truck is pulling out with boxes in the back, which is the food. Each box represents a fast food chain, to show how that food gets to a restaurant. We then drew a tractor connecting with the food system by having the conveyor belt as a wheel. The tractor is on road that connects all four units together. We drew an average American fast food meal, walking its way to the globe, or to its home McDonald's. We represented the Green Revolution by drawing the “Father of the Green Revolution”, Norman Borlaug, injecting fertilizer and chemicals into wheat. To represent the harm these fertilizers and chemicals do to crops, we drew an empty bottle of poison on the ground. We wanted to capture all the elements of this unit so when people look at it they get a sense of what is going on.

G.S (2014) Food for Thought.