| Deena
Capparelli
Deena Capparelli, an artist and educator, has taught full-time
at Pasadena City College for 18 years, initiating numerous multi-disciplinary
programs involving art, design, and science. Capparelli is co-coordinator
of the MOISTURE project in the Mojave Desert and has just completed
work on the Invisible Trajectories: Passing Through the Inland Empire
project for the California Story Fund. Her interests range from
sculptural installation to ecological/native plant design.
Beatriz da Costa
Beatriz da Costa is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher.
She is dedicated to a participatory practice and interactions with
non-academic publics represent a key component of her work. Beatriz
is a former collaborator of Critical Art Ensemble and a co-founder
of Preemptive Media, an arts, activism and technology group. Beatriz
is an Assistant Professor of Arts, Computation, Engineering at the
University of California.
Melanie
DuPuis
Melanie DuPuis’ work melds political economy and cultural
perspectives in the study of consumption, food, agriculture, development,
environment, technology, justice and social change. Her methods
include social history, policy analysis, discourse analysis and
geography. Her book, Nature’s Perfect Food, brought together
these disciplines to understand the invention of milk as a commodity
in the United States. Her most recent book, Smoke and Mirrors, brought
together a group of urban environmental historians, economists,
political scientists, and sociologists to look specifically at air
pollution as a cultural and political phenomenon. Her position in
the Sociology Department at UCSC has brought her into contact with
some of the best U.S. social theorists of race, a major influence
in her formulation of the Eating Cultures project. DuPuis studied
the political economy of development at Cornell University (Ph.D.
1991) and supplemented this with a post-doc in Science and Technology
Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic University in 1992.
Sheila Fennoy
Shiela Fennoy currently teaches biology at Santa Monica College.
She began her career with a Ph.D. in Plant Molecular Physiology
from UC Berkeley and enjoys developing sustainable systems in landscapes
& ecosystems, permaculture and biking.
Dan Froot
Dan Froot has performed his dance, music and theater work throughout
the U.S. and overseas since 1983. Awards include a 1991 Bessie (NY
Dance and Performance Award) and a 2000 C.O.L.A. (City of Los Angeles
Artist Fellowship). Dan has worked with artists as diverse as Yoshiko
Chuma, Ping Chong, David Dorfman, Mabou Mines, Dan Hurlin, Ralph
Lemon, Guy Klucevsek and Victoria Marks. Thanks to the City of West
Hollywood for supporting the creation of "Who's Hungry?"
Fritz Haeg
Like a system of crop rotation, Fritz Haeg works between his architecture
&design practice Fritz Haeg Studio, the happenings & gatherings
of Sundown Salon, the ecology initiatives of Gardenlab and his work
as a college educator. Each initiative is a direct response to an
observed need. Collectively they seek to support innovative art
and design, cultivate and nurture communities, improve the natural-human
environment and to make connections and relationships between people
and places that have been isolated or ignored by contemporary society.
Recent projects have included the "Edible Estates" initiative
to replace suburban front lawns with edible landscapes, the Bernardi
Residence in the Silver Lake hills of Los Angeles, and Sundown Schoolhouse,
the gently radical non-disciplinary educational environment initiated
in autumn 2006 in Haeg's geodesic dome residence. He studied architecture
at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia and Carnegie
Mellon University, where he received his B.Arch in 1992. He has
been a faculty member in the furniture and product design department
at Parsons School of Design in New York, the U.S.C. School of Architecture,
the environmental design department at Art Center College of Design,
the U.S.C. School of Art and CalArts in Valencia, California. His
work has been presented at the MAK Center in Los Angeles, the I.C.A.
in Philadelphia, the Whitney Museum in New York, Mass MOCA in North
Adams, MA and the Wattis Institute in San Francisco among others.
Pearl Ho
Pearl Ho's background is in engineering and designing biomedical
instrumentation and devices. She likes to consider her current work
as a critical practice of engineering. By using engineering methods
in creating artwork, she hopes to introduce self-reflexivity and
criticality to the industry.
Roman Jaster
Roman is a graphic designer currently completing his studies at
the California Institute of the Arts. He is interested in compassionate
and responsible design that carries the intention for positive change.
He curated and designed the book “Reclaim+Recover,”
which catalogs interventionist artist projects (such as Rebar’s
“Parking Day” and Heavy Trash’s “Aqua Line”)
that aim to transform urban ecologies. Roman has also explored how
graphic design can be employed as a medium for social intervention.
The piece “Please Re-use Me” was designed to encourage
shoppers to reduce waste. In front of a Ralph’s supermarket
in Valencia, California, 150 modified grocery bags were handed out.
The bags were overprinted with information regarding grocery bag
waste and shoppers were urged to reuse their bags.
Roman was raised in northeastern Germany, but moved to California
in 1998. He enjoys gardening, cooking, taking long walks with audio
books, and listening to KCRW’s “Left, Right and Center.”
He lives with his wife Natalia in Valencia.
Grant Kester
Grant Kester is an art historian and critic whose research focuses
on socially-engaged art practice, the visual culture of American
reform movements, and aesthetic theory. He received a BFA in photography
from the Maryland Institute, College of Art and an MA and PhD from
the Visual and Cultural Studies program at the University of Rochester,
where his dissertation examined the relationship between aesthetic
and political philosophy in eighteenth-century English culture.
Grant currently teaches at UCSD in the Department of Visual Arts.
Martha L. Orozco-Cardenas
Martha L. Orozco-Cardenas is the director of the Plant Transformation
Research Center at the University of California – Riverside.
She began her scientific career in the USA in 1991, working with
Professor C. A. Ryan at the Institute of Biological Chemistry of
WSU. She conducted studies on the signaling pathway components of
plant defense responses, using tomato plants as a model system.
The results of her research have been published in very prestigious
scientific journals. Dr. Orozco-Cardenas has also been a visiting
scientist on collaborative research projects with the Boyce Thompson
Institute for Plant Research, Inc. (Ithaca, NY), and the Laboratory
of Tropical Crop Improvement of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
in Belgium. The aim of her current research is focused on the application
of plant tissue culture, molecular biology and genetic engineering
techniques to study gene function, to enhance plant protection,
and the improvement of crop productivity.
Claire Pentecost
Claire Pentecost is an artist and writer, engaging a variety of
media to interrogate the imaginative and institutional structures
that organize divisions of knowledge. Building on a long-term inquiry
into the conceptual distinctions of artificial and natural, many
recent projects concentrate on industrial and bioengineered agriculture,
and their alternatives. Pentecost is Associate Professor, Photography
Department, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Claude Willey
Claude Willey is an artist, urbanist and educator, teaching courses
on city growth, development, and environmental systems in the Urban
Studies and Planning Department at California State University,
Northridge and at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Willey
is co-coordinator of the MOISTURE project in the Mojave Desert and
has just completed work in the Inland Empire on the Invisible Trajectories
project for the CCH/California Story Fund. Willey’s activities
have merged ecology, renewable-energy technologies, and urban transportation
history. His defines himself as a professional bicycle commuter,
clocking 230 miles per week on the roads of L.A. County.
Stephen Vines
Reverend Stephen Vines currently serves as associate minister of
the New Hope Missionary Church in San Bernardino, California. In
alliance with Hickman Farms and as co-founder of the Anne Shirrells
Garden he helps to bring fresh organic produce to West San Bernardino.
He has recently organized the San Bernardino Community Development
Corporation, has served as president of the NAACP (San Luis Obispo
County Chapter), and has worked as an educational change activist
in Toledo, Ohio, among other projects. As an organizer and activist,
Reverend Vines brings together government, business, non-profit
and ecclesiastical entities to improve the quality of life in his
community. He is a Transformationalist and Co-creator of the Interactive
Discipline management Platform ( The Motion of Change).
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