Sacramento Farmers and Chefs

SACRAMENTO FARMERS AND CHEFS

A fine art documentary photography project that aims to highlight those individuals responsible for the bountiful Sacramento food culture.

SACRAMENTO FARMERS AND CHEFS www.sacramentofarmersandchefs.com THE IDEA:

Sacramento Farmers and Chefs is a documentary photography project that highlights the people responsible for the bountiful food culture of the Sacramento Valley. A collection of portraits and interviews is being created as a result of research into the farming and restaurant communities of our region. This collection is essentially a historical archive of the farmers and chefs whose work is defining and innovating our local food culture today. Whether farmer or chef, the goal of our project is to provide equal recognition for these hard-working people. Regardless of their perceived status in the community, these individuals’ livelihoods are at the center of and have shaped our production, appreciation, and discourse of food. They deserve our recognition and thanks. Photographer Janine Mapurunga founded Sacramento Farmers and Chefs in 2012, when she began researching, photographing and interviewing participants. Project director Kelly Rivas came on board in mid 2013 and has become essential to the project's development. THE METHOD: All farmers and chefs participate in the same manner: a) The portrait sessions take place at Janine Mapurunga's “porch studio” – a natural light studio created on the front porch of her East Sacramento home. b) All participants must wear a plain, white, crew neck T-shirt and remove objects they may usually fashion (such as glasses and hats). By removing the subjects from their environment and eliminating elements that may mask them in some way, each person is presented “as is”. c) All participants are interviewed. The idea is to have an account of the life trajectory that has led each person to become the food professional she or he is today. All farmers and chefs featured in this project have been identified by their peers as significant members of the local food community. Participation in this project is voluntary and free of charge. PROJECT GOALS: 1- “Eat & Greet” private dinners with farmers and chefs. As Sacramento Farmers and Chefs has grown and developed in both conception and participation, so has its scale. We have already photographed and interviewed over fifty farmers

and chefs as we realize we have barely scratched the surface. There is much more work to be done and we need funding in order to keep this independent project going. With this in mind, we are reaching out to the community for sponsors and creating a series of private dinner fundraisers called “Eat & Greets”. “Eat & Greet” private dinner fundraisers feature farmers and chefs who are participating in the project. These are one of a kind exclusive events intended to provide an intimate culinary experience. Two goals of these events are:

a) To provide an opportunity to connect local eaters with some of the remarkable individuals responsible for the abundant food culture of the Sacramento Valley.

b) To raise funds to cover the costs needed to keep the project running.

2- Grand Opening A kick-off reception with the first 60 printed portraits. Saturday September 14th will mark the unveiling of the first 60 larger than life portraits. We will randomly select 30 farmers and 30 chefs to be featured in 42x23in metal prints. All other portraits will be featured by projector throughout the duration of the event. This event will take place in midtown Sacramento and will feature food and beverages by some of the farmers and chefs participating in the project. Stay tuned for more details. If you are interested in sponsoring the event or have a recommendation for possible sponsors, please email us at [email protected] 3- Interviews We are transcribing and editing the interviews so they may be featured along with the portraits on the website. 4- Book Compiling the collection of portraits and interviews into a book is the ultimate goal of Sacramento Farmers and Chefs.

What some of the participants are saying about Sacramento Farmers and Chefs:

Patrick Mulvaney of Mulvaney’s B&L: "Sacramento Farmers and Chefs is important as we talk about who our partners are in Sacramento; it helps to understand who is growing your food and who is cooking it. It makes explicit the connection between the farmer and the chef. This project is valuable in that it reminds us that it takes a village. There is everybody. What people are eating when they are at my restaurant is the result of the work of all those people. As the project shows some of those faces it brings recognition through awareness." “If one of the purposes of photography is to convey a sense of place and time, in many ways the food that many of the chefs in Sacramento are making does the same thing. This is one the parallels. Food like photography is conveying the essence of a place in time.”

Aimal Formoli of Formoli’s Bistro: "Without that farmer, who I think should get more credit than what we do, there wouldn’t be any of this. Those people are the ones who really get us where we are; we just open their packages and go to town with the great things that they did. I think the focus of this project is great, that it takes this person to make that person exist. They coexist. It’s brilliant to show people a different angle of what’s going on."

Teresa Urkofsky of The Oak Cafe at ARC: “We need to go back to the way we ate a hundred years ago, when we knew to only eat tomatoes in the summer instead of having them shipped from thousands of miles away, when we had a relationship with the farmer who was growing our food. With Sacramento Farmers and Chefs, Janine Mapurunga is using art to remind us of that.”

Suzanne Ashworth of Del Rio Botanical:

“It’s a very artistic idea!”

Craig MacNamara of Sierra Orchards and The Center of Land-Based Learning:

"I appreciate what Janine Mapurunga is doing because she is weaving a tapestry of different lives and creating a story that is leveling everyone, leveling and rising, not leveling down but leveling up."

About the photographer:

JANINE MAPURUNGA's professional photography career began in the year 2000. She specializes in documentary photography, an approach that she applies to socially-focused projects as well as weddings and portraiture commissions. Besides the west coast, her work has taken her throughout the United States and as far as Costa Rica, Brazil, Italy, Spain and Sri Lanka. She holds a BA in Socio-Cultural Anthropology from UC Davis and a MFA in Artistic Production and Research from the University of Barcelona. Her teaching career began in 2004 at the Sacramento City College. She currently teaches photography workshops in Sacramento and San Francisco.

CONTACT US:

[email protected]

www.sacramentofarmersandchefs.com

www.facebook.com/sacramentofarmersandchefs

@SacFarmersandchefs

Kelly Rivas – project director: 707.322.6011

Janine Mapurunga – artist & project founder: 415.583.9079

Sacramento Farmers and Chefs and all images it contains are the property of Janine Mapurunga and shall not be reproduced without prior consent.

©2013 JanineMapurunga