Please use this space to comment on the project, the themes that this project addresses, and to contribute your point of view. We look forward to hearing from you.

Here’s what we’ve been thinking about and wrote to our subscribers:

We’ve reached double digits! How can it be that it’s taken us 10 issues to do a photograph? We’re not sure, but we are happy to finally bring one to you. What set Stephanie Dean’s “Modern Groceries” series apart for us was that her images go beyond their aesthetic allure to embody a subtle commentary on our lives in the age of foodism. As you can see, Stephanie’s “Still Life with Strawberries” – an archival print on Hahnemühle paper – doesn’t just look great it also gives you something you can chew on.*

These days our opinions about food have become intimately tied to our politics and identities. No matter your stance on the latest identifier – organic, free range, local, and now biodynamic – or whether you’re an occasional vegan or a die-hard meat eater, most will agree that now more than ever we are what we eat. So what does it say about us that our garlic spent weeks on it’s trek from China and that pineapples – once a sign of vast wealth – are available everywhere year round?

In some sense, we’ve succeeded in realizing the ideal portrayed in the Dutch still lifes Dean repurposes. The wealth and status their owners sought to project is common to us all. Globalization and industrialization has brought incredible variety to our diets. We love getting grapes year round. Mangoes are delicious. Tomatoes are a staple in our fridge no matter the time of year. However those tiny stickers on the tomatoes are emblems of their unforeseen consequences: environmental distress, energy wars, and an increasingly homogenized culture. Some might argue that we have more in common than we’d like to believe with the boston lettuce that innocently spends its entire lifecycle in a plastic package.

These conflicting issues, brought up so subtly in Stephanie’s photograph, were what drew us to her work. With the bounty of summer upon us, we hope they play in your mind as well, perhaps over a delicious meal. Happy Summer!

Best,

Oliver and Eleanor

*pun intended