The Ridge Historical Society
“Harvesting Ethnic Roots”
By Carol Flynn
Chicago artist Joanne Aono opened a new exhibit today at boundary. The exhibit is called “Harvesting Ethnic Roots” and it represents the cultural food identity and history of the diverse peoples who settled in the Ridge area. In fact, Joanne used the Ridge Historical Society (RHS) and RHS Historian Linda Lamberty as research resources while she developed the concept of the project.
Joanne is interested in food sovereignty and immigration experiences. Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods. Joanne and her husband have a 10-acre holistic farm.
In this exhibit, large drawings depict foods gathered or cultivated in the Ridge communities by inhabitants during three historical periods. The back row of drawings depicts the foods gathered and grown by Indigenous Peoples who lived in the area until 1835. These include wild rice, strawberries and onions; and cultivated corn, beans and squash.
The middle row depicts the foods raised by the European settlers, who arrived in the 1830s. Rye and lettuce are two of the crops depicted.
The front row depicts the food items grown by Black Americans who settled in the Chicago area after the U.S. Civil War, many of them descendants of slaves. Collards and okra are two of the items included.
The images are created in pencil, colored pencil, and marker, on sheer material that is used to cover crops. The panels are hung to overlap and sway in the breeze as the viewer walks through them. The delicate drawings and white sheer material create a ghostly, dreamlike experience of days past when the Ridge was natural and rural and some of the land was used for raising and gathering food.
A second part of the exhibit is an outside installation called “Harvest” and consists of a base covered with seeds. Nature – animals, birds, wind and weather – will scatter the seeds and eventually reveal a quote underneath, by Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper and civil rights activist. To learn the quote, you’ll have to visit the exhibit.
Joanne’s website is www.JoanneAono.com.
boundary is a visual arts project space located in a renovated garage on the Ridge, at 2334 West 111th Place, Chicago. The owner is Susannah Papish. The exhibit will run until June. Gallery hours are Saturdays, 12-4 p.m., or by appointment. Go to boundarychicago.space to book an appointment.
My photos do not do justice to the exhibit. The drawings are very delicate and dreamlike, and the details and colors are not caught well in these photos, so I did a lot of enhancing. I‘ll try to get better pictures – or better yet, get over to the exhibit to see it for yourself.