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By Maya Mackey
Hugs by the good folks at Crenshaw Dairy Mart and music spun by DJ Kiah G welcomed me warmly as I entered the world of organically grown food and nutrition, and their undeniable link to good health. I was there, along with others in the community, to join in celebrating the end of their successful exhibit, “Free the Land! Free the people!–A study of the Abolitionist Pod.” .
Located at 8629 Crenshaw Blvd. in Inglewood, Crenshaw Dairy Mart hosted Prosperity Market, a mobile farmers market, on February 15th. Prosperity Market operates as a food truck curated by Black farmers and agriculture experts. Their mission is to transform communities by providing access to good food, nutrition education and partnering with local businesses.
“Free the Land! Free the People!” was an exhibit in partnership with PST ART: Art and Science Collide, a Getty Museum initiative that sponsors several different art institutions in Southern California. PST ART fuses science education and art to both inspire and inform people to think about the future and how to adapt to it, embracing science and technology along the way.
Crenshaw Dairy Mart birthed the exhibit from a need to supply necessary community gardens in regions known as “food deserts”–areas which lack quality food that has to be prepared, not just microwaved. CDM began their project in 2021, building, in their own words, “abolitionist pods–autonomously irrigated, solar-powered gardens within modular geodesic domes”. As the community gardens got built, they began hosting art and healing workshops to help uplift the community.
The day’s events were filled with workshopping activities like self-reflection and wellness, where people got to answer the question,”When do you feel most free?” There was a planting station where attendees got to pot a self-sustaining plant in a mason jar! The water infiltration that takes place between the rock, soil, and water in the jar should keep the plant alive for years so long as it gets adequate sunlight. There was a station to create potpourri and essential oils as well as food vendors,
Inglewood’s own SJLI (Social Justice Learning Institute) was featured in the “Free the Land! Free the People!” exhibit. A 2023 interview with employee Nicole Steele was shown on a giant Ipad screen, where Steele detailed the origins of SJLI and how the institute branched out into fighting for food justice.
Steele shared her reason for doing this work. Her then-boyfriend, now husband, had been diagnosed with hypertension at just 25 years old! She acknowledged the grave fact that health news like this isn’t uncommon in the African-American community, but that it can and should be rectified.
“You would think it’s intuitive for people to know what to eat and how to eat healthy, but it’s just not for everybody,” she said. There is a real need in our communities for nutrition education and training on how to establish city farms. With the country rapidly moving towards self-destruction and foods being recalled every day, her point is well taken.
Of course, most people will not have the time or patience to grow their own food. Many won’t see it as a necessity, but as we face more and more uncertainty with a government that is stripping away social welfare programs, it’s not a bad idea to learn how to provide for your own. Self-sufficiency is the future, and whatever you can learn to do for yourself is a benefit, as we try and survive these unprecedented times.
Other organizations that were featured in the exhibit include Community Services Unlimited, Creative Acts, Plant Plug, WOW Flower Project, Huma House and Prosperity Market.
