Food Justice

“Food deserts” are areas where people have limited or minimal access to a variety of healthful and affordable food. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, to formally qualify as a food desert, an area must be low-income, as defined by a variety of indicators. At least a third of the population must live more than one mile from the nearest large grocery store in urban areas, or more than 10 miles from the nearest such store, in rural areas. In the San Francisco metropolitan area, approximately 600 neighborhoods are considered to be food deserts; of these, more than 40% are also categorized as low-income.  In neighboring San Jose, 289 neighborhoods are considered food deserts. In all, nearly two-thirds of the combined metro area is considered to be a food desert. 

So, what do nearly 900 food deserts have to do with art? Social justice artwork is focused on garnering attention for issues that need to be addressed in society in ways that will lead to common ground and actionable change. The Justice Murals Inside/Out Food Justice Partnership is a project designed to do just that. It features 50 portraits of individuals who have committed themselves to finding solutions to the problem of food deserts in the San Francisco area.

This is not the first such project to use art to raise awareness about issues of food access and food security. In April 2020, the city of Jackson, Mississippi, hosted a city-wide exhibition called “Fertile Ground” with art installations and performances that promoted dialogue about issues related to food access. The artwork explored topics of food policy, food sovereignty, nutrition, domestic hunger, and the agrarian landscape. It also established an important vision of reforming the city’s food access network. Through Fertile Ground’s urban renewal efforts, the city of Jackson built urban gardens, established farm-to-table restaurants, and created municipal food access initiatives.

Public art displays have long been used to raise awareness and foster dialogue, thereby creating momentum and synergy needed to develop long-term solutions to intractable problems. By placing 50 individual portraits side-by-side across a San Francisco building, Justice Murals hopes that this project will inspire all those who view the installation to join together in opening channels of communication and seeking solutions to address and resolve the issues of food access and food justice in the greater San Francisco area.