GROWING YOUR OWN FOOD,
A DECLARATION OF POWER

Being able to grow your own food and knowing that you had a hand in putting something in your body that is fresh, healthy and nutritious is a powerful statement of one’s relationship to land and culture. You get to choose to grow, for yourself, family and your community. For so long, we have forgotten where our food came from; how it was grown or who grew it, this detachment has cost us.  This exhibition shows the work of Karen Washington, Co-Owner of Rise&Root Farm, and the photography of Marisol Diaz who captured Karen growing food in the Hudson Valley for people in The Bronx and beyond.

This exhibit will show how a simple act of growing one’s food can be transformative and revolutionary. We can once again regain that power of truly understanding you are what you eat.

Karen Washington, Co-Founder Black Urban Growers

"We began to rely on an industrial food system that was mechanized for efficiency, as a result we have paid dearly in the form of diet related diseases, but more importantly we lost our relationship to food. If you stop and think about agriculture, there is no agriculture without culture." 

Co-Owner, Rise&Root Farm

Co-Founder,  Black Urban Growers

Marisol Diaz, Photo-Journalist

Growing up, I heard stories of my abuelito (grandfather) in Puerto Rico working the land. Before sunrise he was out in the field collecting crops. Joined by the bull, pigs, cows, chickens, roosters, guinea pig, pigeons and the dogs, this was his fínquita (little farm). At the age of 10, my father, began to learn about the farm, which was located in Las Piedras. They took care of the land, and in return, the land gave them, batata, yame, yautia, papas, beans, pumpkins, bananas, platanos, a variety of peppers, mangos, avocados, tomatoes and many others fruits and vegetables. They lived off the land.  www.marisoldiaz.com