As seen in The New Yorker, BBC, CNN, and at the FotoFest 2016 Biennial, Processed Views presents iconic American landscapes recreated with manufactured food. Created by longtime collaborators Barbara Ciurej and Lindsay Lochman, the project explores the frontier of industrial food production: the seductive and alarming intersection of nature and technology. (Pictured above: Fruit Loops Landscape, courtesy of the artists.)

Both artists will be present to discuss their work at an opening reception on Saturday, October 15 from 6-9 pm at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center. Guests from the Denver Sustainable Food Policy Council will also join the conversation as part of CPAC’s ongoing Developing Dialogues series. FREE.

“As Midwesterners, we saw the landscape transformed as the family farm gave way to agricultural industry. This was not exclusive to the heartland, as Big Ag and food processing facilities eventually spread across the country. In earlier work, we photographed the American West, observing how human interventions altered the land in accord with ideas of progress and new trends in consumption. In Processed Views: Surveying the Industrial Landscape, we revisit the landscape, this time at the seductive and alarming intersection of nature and food technology.

We came to Processed Views from a previous project about the nurturing aspect of food. In those photographs, we traced the emotional and physical energy that flows through the intimate act of preparing and sharing food. The flip side of mealtime in America, however, is the complex, impersonal system of industrial agriculture, food processing, and marketing. As our country moves further away from traditional sources of food, we enter uncharted territory with its myriad unintended consequences for the environment and for our health.

Throughout our collaboration, we have turned to history as a source of inspiration. We reference here the work of Carleton Watkins (1829-1916), whose iconic photographs honored nature and documented development on the frontier. His images were made at a critical time in the ongoing oppositional relationship between American industrial development and conservation. We are at another such historical moment today.

Processed Views presents a provocative encounter with the average American diet. We ask ourselves and our viewers to reevaluate this supposed utopia. Have we oversold our technological ability to bend the forces of nature, whether to fulfill fantasies of a fun food diet or to meet heroic expectations of feeding the world? We hope this work serves as a cautionary tale, where we can extract lessons from the past and pause to consider the consequences of our choices.”

Read about Processed Views review in The New Yorker

Read more on the Artists’ website

About Barbara Ciurej:

Barbara Ciurej is a Chicago-based photographer and graphic designer. She has a Bachelor of Science in Visual Communications from the Institute of Design+Illinois Institute of Technology. Ever looking to the art historical past to invoke order and harmony, her search for narratives to explain the plight of how we got here has fueled 30+ years of making pictures.