GROUND NOTATIONS | Installation at Smith Park

Approximately 11 million acres of land in Mississippi are dedicated to Agriculture, the top industry in the state. Farming on a large industrial scale requires the manipulation of the ground for the highest yield of crops. The land is reorganized into a rigid application of a pattern across a natural landscape. The soil is moved, the ground is changed and restructured into grids, circles, and diagonals. Across this state, the natural landscape is replaced with the pattern of row crops. This has become Mississippi’s new landscape.

Despite the fact that about half of the land in this state is dedicated to industrial farming, Mississippi remains no. 1 in food insecurity. A space exists – between the prolific presence of the commercial farm all across the state and the Mississippi citizen who lacks access to fresh food.

Here, we overlay the pattern of row crops over a city block. The ubiquitous industrial agrarian texture finally marries itself with the urban space it could serve. Situated at the doorstep of the Capitol, the policies that facilitate the spread of this pattern, the yield of crops, and the access to these crops, are finally adjacent to the landscape it has created. If policy can create the new Mississippi landscape, policy can bring the space between industrial farming, and Mississippi’s own access to food one fraction closer.

No longer a road solely for vehicular traffic, this pedestrian-oriented block transforms the street to a place for assembly and exchange. With the Capitol at their backs, the new production landscape at their feet, the citizens of Mississippi can link the key elements in addressing the issue of food insecurity in Mississippi.