Art Display Featured Artist
Canby Public Library Featured Artist
Jennifer Martinez-Medina
(May 4th - July 6th)
Bio
Jennifer Martinez-Medina (she/her/ella) is currently an assistant professor at Willamette University, where she teaches labor, immigration, and environmental politics. Her research broadly focuses on how transnational families exercise political and social rights through kinship and community care. Her ties to farmworker communities in the Central Valley, CA, inform her research focus and methods. She shares research findings through storytelling, art, and advocacy.
About the Exhibit
Jennifer has been photographing farmworkers in the Central Valley, CA and most recently in the Willamette Valley. The photo exhibit seeks to center the faces and bodies of farmworkers, particularly table grape harvesters, in order to capture the rhythms and aesthetics of intensive labor supporting our global food system. Farmworkers, predominantly hailing from communities in Mexico and Guatemala are often Indigenous. Historically, campesino have roots as subsistence farmers who bring significant knowledge, practices, and skills about food systems that draw from their ancestral connections to the land.
Visa, Migrant, and Seasonal Farmworkers experience various forms of erasure and precarity, including earning wages under the poverty line, health-impacts from pesticide exposure and repetitive labor, and weak worker protection to name a few. They are not only veiled behind fields of crops, but also layers of clothing, bandanas, and face masks in order to protect themselves from chemicals, harsh elements, and even pandemic outbreaks. However, their self-provided personal protective equipment (PPE) also has a dual functionality of shielding their identities. While this further hides their contributions from the larger society, it is also a form of protection against an increasingly surveilled world that weaponizes against their immigration status and/or identities across class, gender, race, and ethnicity.
In spite of these conditions, farmworkers are often captured with soft eyes and smiles. The joyful expressions showcase their expression of camaraderie and mutual aid among their peers in order to overcome what often becomes toxic working conditions.
Some of the photos are framed on packaging boxes from the companies who employ farmworkers. While some of the photos are colorful, the audience is given a glimpse into the functioning of the industrial food system. In particular, the exhibit invites viewers to compare the messages in berry commercial advertisements against the realities of farmworkers in the fields.
To learn more about farmworkers today follow and consider donating to Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN), Oregon’s farmworker union.
Link: https://tinyurl.com/PCUNDonate
Are you interested in being a future Featured Artist?
We are looking for family-friendly art that is fun, colorful, and lively in all sorts of mediums!
Our patrons love artwork that depicts nature, animals, and everyday life.
Some details about us and our art display:
- Featured artwork remains on display for two months
- Our display space holds 12-20 hanging artworks depending on size.
- All pieces must be ready for installation, properly wired/mounted, etc.
- Library staff manage the hanging and removal of art work.
- Artists are welcome to sell their work during the display period. The library does not deal with payments or take any commissions on sales of artwork. All sales go through the artist.
We would love to have your work for our patrons to enjoy, in addition to providing you an opportunity for exposure and sales!
Please see below for more details and to submit your art for consideration.
Types of Art Accepted
We accept 2D art such as painting, drawing, printmaking, mixed media, collage, and photography intended to be hung on a wall. Wall-mounted works must be framed, wired and ready for display. No sawtooth hangers. Due to wall space restrictions, submitted works must not exceed 36 inches in either dimension (including frame), or extend more than 3 inches from the wall. Very heavy artwork that needs to be secured to a wall stud cannot be accepted.
Selection Process
Submissions will be evaluated by Canby Public Library staff for criteria including, but not limited to:
- Overall quality and artistic merit.
- Diversity of media, style, technique, and artistic voice.
- Detail and completeness of application.
- Appropriateness for public display particularly given the all-ages programming commonly held in the library. We will not accept artwork that includes profanity, violence, or explicit content.
Featured Artist Application
