Eating in Public (Gaye Chan and Nandita Sharma)
Eating in Public: Free Papaya, Sign, Enchanted Lake, Oahu, 2005
Eating in Public, 2003 to present
Gaye Chan (b. 1957, Hong Kong) and Nandita Sharma (b. 1964, Canada) are artists, scholars and activists who live and work in Kailua, Hawaii. In 2003 they launched Eating in Public, an on-going collaborative art project and manifesto that encourages the public to plant and cultivate indigenous edible food on public lands. To inaugurate this program, the artists planted papaya seedlings, herbs and vegetables on a neglected strip of state owned land and posted a sign inviting anyone and everyone to care for the plants and reap the harvest. In a statement summarizing their aims, they said planting food “works to reclaim land as something that is for people who use it for their own self-sufficiency. One of our goals is to reclaim the commons…that belongs to those whose own labor is used to create it.”
Chan and Sharma produce free booklets with information on how to harvest and prepare the plants for eating. They also encourage the public planting of the indigenous taro root Huli Kalo—a staple of traditional Hawaiian cooking—by distributing free cuttings through their website Freebay. Their booklets Free Papayas and Eating in Public are part of their growing franchise of publications, blogs, and websites designed to spread their message that sustainability is best realized through self-determination and a shared interest in the commons.
Biography:
Gaye Chan is a visual and media artist recognized equally for her individual and collaborative work. Her ongoing interest in examining history through found materials has culminated in solo exhibitions at Honolulu Academy of Art (Honolulu), Art in General (New York City), YYZ (Toronto), Artspeak (Vancouver), Gallery 4A (Sydney), SF Camerawork (San Francisco), and The Contemporary Museum (Honolulu). She is currently a professor and the Chair of the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Hawai’i-Manoa.
Nandita Sharma is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies and Sociology and an affiliate faculty member of the International Cultural Studies Graduate Certificate Program at The University of Hawai’i-Manoa. Dr. Sharma is an activist scholar whose research is shaped by such social movements as “No Borders” and those struggling for the commons. She is the author of Home Economics: Nationalism and the Making of ‘Migrant Workers’ in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2006 – ) and a co-founder of the Basmati Action Group, an activist organization dedicated to exposing biopiracy and the corporatization of life forms.
Eating in Public: Free Papaya, plantings, Honolulu, 2003
Eating in Public: Free Papaya, Care taking Sign, Honolulu, 2003
—Kirby Gookin & Robin Kahn