At first, being asked
to wander out into the food desert and find healthy food and a lot of it, for
only $10 was an incredibly daunting task. I originally looked at the USDA's Food Desert
Locator for downtown Appleton Wisconsin and felt as if finding healthy food
would be an incredibly impossible task. I volunteered to take the East
half of College Avenue and surrounding areas and found very little. Most
of what I did find were big corporate business buildings, their parking spaces,
places for rent, and closed restaurants (as we were planning to rendezvous at
11am). One area where there was a decent amount of food was the city
center. They had a Deli, when at a glance, spending $10 on a pound of
pasta salad seemed like a waste. I later found out they had fresh
produce, but it did take some looking in order to locate it. This made me realize, shopping on a budget in
a food desert quite obviously takes quite a bit of work and a willingness to
work to find the perfect place. Then the
question you have to ask is, if you are below the poverty line and still have a
job, when will you find time to search for budget food while you are probably
working most of your day?
Because the Deli seemed
to have expensive food, I went to Tropical Smoothie Café,
where I knew due to their advertising I would at very least be finding healthy
food. They had a variety of options, all
of which seemed incredibly healthy. I
was able to get food that I would have been able to survive on for a day. I chose to share my food with the students in
our class who were hungry after going out on a long search in the food desert
as a reward. Because there was food
leftover I chose to share it with other students who mentioned they were hungry
before they knew I intended to give people who mentioned they were hungry food. It was a momentary reward, one that won’t
last a while, as it would for anyone in the food desert.
I chose to make this
video on the search for food and the reactions of hungry people upon eating it,
yet overlay it with a narration, to impress upon viewers the realities of the
food desert, without making it too depressing.
I didn't really know what you guys were all doing for this project, so it's interesting to see how it ended up turning out. I like how concise the video is - it seems to cover the necessary points, and gets the idea across effectively without being overly depressing, like you said. It's surprisingly difficult to find healthy, affordable food in the downtown area, and the solution you found was probably the next best thing available.
ReplyDeleteI think your video message was very straightforward and, because of that, very successful. I like how you focused on people eating, drawing attention to how little food is available in a food desert and the fact that being able to eat is almost a luxury. Out of all the class members, I feel like you were able to find the most fresh nutritious food. You even had a fresh banana, something the majority of us did not even see. I also think it was interesting how you took it beyond the students in our class and offered food to other hungry students. That brings in a performative level to the project as a whole.
ReplyDeleteThe juxtaposition between the spoken message and the images of people enjoying the (nutritious) food is unsettling and very effective. It appears as if you and Mari are mocking people without the ability to find healthy food, but it definitely highlights the overall announcement you are making and is a great use of sound/image.
ReplyDeleteWhen listening to the text several times over, we hear the comment about the packaging and fast food. Your video shows the "concrete jungle" and implies that restaurant food is about the only alternative. We are struck by all the PACKAGING and how unsustainable such a system may be!
ReplyDelete