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Photo by Lauren DeSimone
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Photo by Lauren DeSimone
Food deserts – urban neighborhoods more than one mile away from a grocery store – are a daily issue for many Richmonders, something artist Lauren DeSimone will spotlight with her “Local Natives” series of photographs.
The series will feature photos of community gardens that will be projected onto abandoned storefronts in food desert neighborhoods. The images will be taken with disposable film cameras by DeSimone and members of impacted communities.
DeSimone, who earned a bachelor’s degree in sculpture and extended media from Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts, is one of six artists and collectives who each received a $10,000 grant from the Richmond Memorial Health Foundation to create an arts project that will explore health equity issues as a way to start community conversations.
“The cracks that illuminate our inadequate food systems reflect … greater gaps within our communities,” says DeSimone. “At the same time, food system advocacy can be an accessible entry point to better understanding those gaps so that we may begin to build bridges toward a more equitable community.”
DeSimone has a background in art and in advocating for food access via groups like EngageMore and Community Food Lab. The grant offers her a way to combine two passions.
The grant also requires artists to do research on what “healthy” means, something DeSimone plans to do via interviews with residents of food deserts. “Through what I’m calling ‘listening labs,’ I’m going to engage residents and neighbors to talk about what healthy means to them, what does a healthy community mean,” says DeSimone. “I’m not going to impose upon or influence their answer, but my interest is also in more intangible and arbitrary evaluations of what healthy means, while also trying to bring in the role of food or lack of food.”
DeSimone is seeking storefronts for her display along the Brookland Park Boulevard/East Chamberlayne Avenue area and around East Broad Street, and plans to launch her project by displaying her installations in these locations starting Sept. 1, as part of the First Fridays series.
