laboratory for creative concepts
Panel: Food Justice and Diverse Farming Ecosystem (English + Spanish)
Wed, Nov 25
|Online Webinar
Panel Discussion led by Jungwon Kim of the Rainforest Alliance, with farmer & community activist Karen Washington and artist Lina Puerta.
Time & Location
Nov 25, 2020, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Online Webinar
About the Event
Join us for an online panel discussion led by Jungwon Kim of the Rainforest Alliance, with farmer & community activist Karen Washington, and artist Lina Puerta. The event will highlight the importance of community, living in greater harmony with the cycles of nature, and how we can adapt our way of life to be more sustainable. The participants will be invited to reflect upon how nature and food production can be a source of building community identity.
The webinar will be presented in English with simultaneous interpretation available in Spanish by Babilla Collective.
Interpretación en vivo en español por Babilla Collective.
Jungwon Kim
As Head of Creative & Editorial at the Rainforest Alliance, Jungwon Kim leads the storytelling work. Based in the New York office, she guides a team of designers, writers, and video producers in the creation of multimedia content that showcases the mission impact of the Rainforest Alliance's work around the world.
Prior to joining the Rainforest Alliance, Kim worked as a journalist across a wide range of mediums, including video, digital, radio, and print. She served as the lead editor at Amnesty International USA for 10 years and as a news writer and broadcast reporter for CNBC Asia, Public Radio International, and American Public Radio. Her writing has been published in The Nation, Newsday, Vibe, and Colorlines. Kim did her undergraduate studies (B.A. Philosophy) and graduate studies (M.J./M.A. Journalism and East Asian Studies) at the University of California, Berkeley, where she was awarded the Fulbright, Foreign Language Area Studies fellowship, and Korea Foundation fellowships.
Karen Washington
Karen Washington is a farmer and community activist, striving to make New York City a better place to live. As a community gardener and board member of the New York Botanical Garden, she worked with Bronx neighborhoods to turn empty lots into community gardens.
As an advocate, and former president of the New York City Community Garden Coalition, she stood up and spoke out for garden protection and preservation. As a member of La Familia Verde Garden Coalition, she helped launch a City Farms Market, bringing fresh vegetables to the community.
Karen is a board member of Farm School NYC, leading workshops on growing food and food justice across the country, of Soul Fire Farm, an organization committed to undoing racism and injustice in the food system, and of Why Hunger, a grassroots support organization aimed at ending hunger. In 2010, she co-founded Black Urban Growers (BUGS), an organization supporting growers in both urban and rural settings, and most recently in 2019, she co-founded Black Farmer Fund, to support black farms and businesses with capital and resources in New York State.
In 2012, Ebony magazine voted her one of their 100 most influential African Americans in the country and in 2014 she was the recipient of the James Beard Leadership Award. Since retiring from Physical Therapy in 2014, Karen is Co-Owner/Farmer at Rise & Root Farm in Chester New York.
Lina Puerta
Lina Puerta was born in New Jersey, raised in Colombia and lives and works in New York City. Puerta holds an MSEd in Art Education from Queens College/CUNY and has exhibited internationally. She is currently the 2019/2020 Artist-in-Residency at the Sugar Hill Children's Museum of Art and Storytelling in Harlem. She has also been honored with the 2017 NYFA Fellowship in Crafts/Sculpture, Fall 2017 Artist-in-Residency at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans, the 2016 Dieu Donné Workspace Residency, Artprize-8 Sustainability Award, 2015 Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant, 2015 Kohler Arts Industry Residency (WI), 2014-15 Keyholder Residency at the Lower East Side Printshop, 2013-14 Smack Mellon Art Studio Program, 2014 Materials for the Arts Artist Residency, 2013 Wave Hill Winter Workspace, and the 2010 Emerging Artist Fellowship at Socrates Sculpture Park in New York. Exhibition venues include the Ford Foundation Gallery, The Museum of Biblical Art, El Museo del Barrio, Socrates Sculpture Park, Wave Hill, and Geary Contemporary in New York City; 21C Museum Hotels in Louisville, KY and Bentonville, AR; and Pi Artworks in London. Puerta's work has been written about in Hyperallergic, The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, and Artnet News among others.
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The panel discussion is funded in part by Humanities New York with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the NEH.
About Humanities NY
The mission of Humanities New York is to strengthen civil society and the bonds of community, using the humanities to foster engaged inquiry and dialogue around social and cultural concerns.
About KODA
KODA Arts Inc. is a nonprofit arts organization based in New York dedicated to mid-career artists of diverse backgrounds. KODA grants residencies to allow for experimentation and facilitates creative projects through strategic partnerships with socially engaged businesses. KODA is the go-to thinking spot and serves the community through exhibitions of contemporary art, events and outreach to strengthen art education. KODA’s projects and strategy are artist-centered and aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. KODA is fiscally sponsored by New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA).