Heirloom
Heirloom explores the practice of planting and growing crops, foraging, harvesting, and preserving our own foods. From an early age, my family began instilling the value of self-reliance, not out of necessity but out of a desire to pass on knowledge and traditions. Investigating these heirloom traditions has led me to be less reliant on our standard food production model and has built confidence in my ability to provide for myself.
This project began with me documenting the ideas and practices of others. My research was centered around organizations focusing on sustainable, regenerative, and large-scale organic agricultural practices. These ideas began to influence how I grow foods, and I felt a need to bring my focus inward to my practices of self-reliance and sustainability. I highlight the importance of being more self-reliant and to start a conversation about a more responsible way of growing and harvesting the things we need. Through this body of work, I document some of the practices I instill in my own life. I show images of my garden, me tending to the plants, the act of processing and preserving produce, and the domestic space in which I grapple with these ideas. I invite the viewer to engage with knowledge and traditions to which many no longer have a connection.
Growing up in the rural South, many of my summers were spent helping grandparents and great-grandparents tend to the family garden and livestock. It was not unusual to spend a Saturday breaking and canning beans or processing tomato sauce. Followed by fall and winter spent in the woods hunting with my dad and grandfather. These notions of tradition and preserving a way of life are central to the narrative of Heirloom.
Heirloom explores the practice of planting and growing crops, foraging, harvesting, and preserving our own foods. From an early age, my family began instilling the value of self-reliance, not out of necessity but out of a desire to pass on knowledge and traditions. Investigating these heirloom traditions has led me to be less reliant on our standard food production model and has built confidence in my ability to provide for myself.
This project began with me documenting the ideas and practices of others. My research was centered around organizations focusing on sustainable, regenerative, and large-scale organic agricultural practices. These ideas began to influence how I grow foods, and I felt a need to bring my focus inward to my practices of self-reliance and sustainability. I highlight the importance of being more self-reliant and to start a conversation about a more responsible way of growing and harvesting the things we need. Through this body of work, I document some of the practices I instill in my own life. I show images of my garden, me tending to the plants, the act of processing and preserving produce, and the domestic space in which I grapple with these ideas. I invite the viewer to engage with knowledge and traditions to which many no longer have a connection.
Growing up in the rural South, many of my summers were spent helping grandparents and great-grandparents tend to the family garden and livestock. It was not unusual to spend a Saturday breaking and canning beans or processing tomato sauce. Followed by fall and winter spent in the woods hunting with my dad and grandfather. These notions of tradition and preserving a way of life are central to the narrative of Heirloom.
