Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga

Structural Patterns

Reflections on Art, Technology and Society

Archive for the ‘food rescue’ tag

Final Day of EXCESS NYC at Artspace, New Haven

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EXCESS NYC at Artspace, New Haven, CT

EXCESS NYC at Artspace, New Haven, CT

Tomorrow Brooke and I will be riding the food rescue and compost bike around New Haven collecting food for the final event of “Vagaries of the Commons.” Big thanks to curator Sarah Fritchey for lining up participating restaurants and vendors giving us food that would otherwise be thrown away!

Written by ricardo

September 12th, 2014 at 6:49 pm

EXCESS NYC at Stamford CT

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EXCESS at Franklin Street Works

EXCESS at Stamford’s Franklin Street Works

Terri Smith, the director of Franklin Street Works, a not for profit art space in Stamford CT, invited EXCESS NYC to Stamford for the city’s first Art Walk. The food rescue and composting bike was installed at an empty store front in downtown Stamford along with a poster installation that reveals some of the realities underlying EXCESS. And for a one day event on Saturday June 15th, the bike circulated downtown Stamford to collect discarded edible food that was eaten at a picnic in Franklin Street Works’ backyard.

Rescued food

Food contributed by Stamford farmer’s market, Napa & Company and Lorca Cafe

The big food collection occurred as EXCESS happened to ride into the Bedford Street farmer’s market as the vendors were breaking down. We went from vendor to vendor and asked if they had food that they would be throwing away. One vendor invited us to take everything! We got boxes of fruits and vegetables from him, amazing avocados and bell peppers that would not have been good for another day. We made a great avocado spread for the evening. Other fruit and vegetable vendors gave us bags of fruits.

We also collected a small amount of compost. It was all the discarded fruit and seeds that vendors cut up for people to try that were discarded. It appeared that a lot more could have been collected if it wasn’t already packed in trash bags with other garbage.

The few restaurants that had agreed to put food aside for us either forgot or could not contribute. However two businesses entirely came through – Napa and Company at 75 Broad St. Adam the chef is great, understands composting and food waste and was eager to contribute.

Leyla, the owner of Lorca Cafe on Bedford was also entirely on board. Her employees were expecting us with bags of baked goods, a real treat for everyone visiting the gallery. Tomorrow is the final day of the storefront installation.

EXCESS NYC in Stamford CT

EXCESS NYC downtown Stamford store front installation

EXCESS poster installation

EXCESS poster installation at downtown Stamford storefront

EXCESS poster installation

EXCESS poster installation, Stamford CT.

Written by ricardo

June 20th, 2013 at 1:41 pm

EXCESS NYC Documentation

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EXCESS is a community-based art project that investigates the large amounts of organic waste in urban centers and creatively employs new tactics to divert food from landfill and back to people to consume or compost. Can we make smarter urban infrastructure where edible food gets eaten, organic waste is turned into compost, compost is used to remediate contaminated lots, vacant lots are transformed into gardens and cities save money while reducing greenhouse emissions? EXCESS NYC is currently active in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

The food rescue and composting bike will be circulating in downtown Stamford, CT in conjunction with the exhibition Strange Invitation at Franklin Street Works.

EXCESS at Just Food Conference 2013

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Today at 10:30am Brooke and I are presenting our neighborhood composting project at the Just Food Conference as part of MAKING ART WITH FOOD IN MIND (ENGAGING NYC COMMUNITIES) panel. We’ve made an initial video cut documenting the project thus far that we’ll be presenting as an introduction and then briefly describe where we are at and how we are moving forward with EXCESS NYC.

EXCEDENTES/EXCESS 2011-2013 from Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga on Vimeo.

About the panel:
10:30-11:45am
Food & Finance High School (Sign outside of the building reads Park West High School)
525 West 50th Street, New York, NY

MAKING ART WITH FOOD IN MIND (ENGAGING NYC COMMUNITIES)
For centuries artists have given us new ways of seeing the world around us through the lens of food. The last decade has been especially rich as artists respond to the challenges and concerns of feeding ourselves by creating models that are local, sustainable and community-oriented. In this workshop, visual artists will offer practical advice on using food creatively while fostering social change.

Speakers: Atom Cianfarani, Co-Author of A Roof Grows in Brooklyn: The Do-It-Yourself Green Roof Workbook; Jason Gaspar, Wyckoff Farmhouse Museum; Lisa Gross, Boston Tree Party; Brooke Singer & Ricardo Miranda Zuniga, collaborating artists on “Excess NYC”; Tattfoo Tan, artist