“From Each Little Seed” Exhibit and Event
“From Each Little Seed” is an exhibit of 12 graphic panels that tells the story of the community gardening among the Oaxacan residents of New Brunswick. Using oral histories conducted among gardeners Doraelia Aguilar, Cira Cruz, Odelia Hernandez, Angélica Martinez, and Alejandro Victoriano Antonio, author Susana Plotts-Pineda and artist Courtney Menard from coLAB Arts created a comic book to share the stories and knowledge circulating in the garden community. This exhibit, created by New Jersey Folk Festival student SJ Waldman and graphic designer Danielle Farrah, shares the stories of the gardeners, the art of the comic book, the creative communities keeping gardening and culinary traditions of Oaxaca alive at the Landers and Feaster Park Gardens.
The oral history project was a collaboration between coLAB Arts and the Department of Human Ecology, SEBS, Rutgers University; and Unity Square Community Center, Catholic Charities – Diocese of Metuchen. The project was funded by the Rutgers Research Council. The exhibit project extended this collaboration to the New Jersey Folk Festival, Rutgers University Department of American Studies, with funding from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation and Middlesex Arts Institute.
The exhibit will be on display at the Harvest Cafe in the Institute for Food, Nutrition, and Health on the Rutgers University Cook Campus from March 25 – April 25, 2024, and at the New Jersey Folk Festival on April 27, 2024.
Explore the Exhibit
Exhibit Event: Afternoon Activities and Refreshments
Friday April 12, 2024 3-5pm Harvest Cafe, Institute for Food Nutrition and Health
Join us on Friday April 12, 2024 at the Harvest Cafe from 3-5pm for an afternoon of drop-in activities, talks, and afternoon refreshments.
Parking: Lots 97 & 98B, Cook Campus
Parking Map: https://campusvisitorguides.com/rutgers/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2019/09/Cook_Douglass.jpg
Parking Registration: https://rudots.nupark.com/v2/portal/eventregister/5bf57684-8103-4925-9a25-39b6b21c8a35#/events/registration/
3pm, Professor Richard Alomar of the Department of Landscape Architecture at Rutgers will respond to the exhibit and lead an activity in urban sketching. Alomar has worked on public projects from the urban planning to the community garden scale and has won international competitions for landscape designs in Chicago and Verona, Italy.
4pm, Jeff Quatronne of the Library Seed Bank will lead a talk and activity on Seed Saving. Jeff created the Library Seed Bank with the goal to connect the public to seed and agriculture history in NJ through seed libraries by bringing seeds back to the counties and state they originated in. The local seed libraries provide a permanent home for this through community based programs.
Image: “Spring” Courtney Menard
