In the Eyes of the Hungry

Opening Reception:
Monday, February, 27 2017, 5–7 pm

Free and Open to the Public!

Sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts Big Read and inspired by John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939), In the Eyes of the Hungry: Florida’s Changing Landscape explores Florida’s demographic, geographic and ecological shifts over the last century. Working in photography, painting, printmaking, installation and textiles, the selected artists, including Cesar Cornejo, Mark Messersmith, Lilian Garcia-Roig, Noelle Mason, Peter Schreyer, Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks, Emil Holzhauer, William Jenkins, Doris Leeper, J. André Smith, and the Lake Apopka farmworkers, provide immediate yet transcendental responses to Florida’s changing landscape and explore ideas ranging from agriculture and industrialization to migration and tourism to ecology and conservation.

The UCF Art Gallery also will be the drop off location for the Big Read food drive (canned goods and other non-perishable food items).

Additional Programming:

Lecture: Keri Watson, “Curatorial Talk”

Tuesday, February 28; 1 – 2 pm

Keri Watson is an Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Central Florida, and has curated the exhibition In the Eyes of the Hungry: Florida’s Changing Landscape, which will open at the University of Central Florida Art Gallery on February 26, 2017.

Lecture: John Fauth, “Environmental Concerns on the Little Econ”

Tuesday, February 28; 3 – 4 pm

John Fauth, Associate Professor of Biology at UCF and expert in ecology, evolution, conservation and restoration biology, and herpetology, will give a talk on environmental issues and the Econ River.

Artist Talk: Cesar Cornejo

Wednesday, March 1; 10–11 am

Cesar Cornejo, Associate Professor of Sculpture and Extended Media at the University of South Florida and Creative Capital Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, and Sculpture Space grantee will give a talk on his work.

Lecture and Book Signing: Dale Slongwhite “Fed Up The High Costs of Cheap Food”

Wednesday, March 1; 1–2 pm

Dale Slongwhite will discuss her book, Fed Up: The High Costs of Cheap Food, which presents oral histories of African American farmworkers whose lives were forever altered by one of the most disturbing pesticide exposure incidents in United States’ history.

Lecture, Book Signing, and Panel Discussion: Cindy Hahamovitch, “The Fruits of Their Labor”

Thursday, March 2; 3-5 pm • Hosted by UCF Public History program

Cindy Hahamovitch, Professor of History at the University of Georgia and author of The Fruits of Their Labor: Atlantic Coast Farmworkers and the Making of Migrant Poverty, 1870-1945 and No Man’s Land: Jamaican Guestworkers in America and the Global History of Deportable Labor will discuss her award-winning book The Fruits of Their Labor. A panel discussion and reception hosted by Scot French, Director of Public History at UCF, and featuring Connie Lester, Director of RICHES, and Robert Cassanello, Associate Professor of History, will follow Dr. Hahamovitch’s lecture.

Keynote Lecture: Susan Shillinglaw, “The Legacy of Steinbeck”

Friday, March 3; 3-4:30 pm

Susan Shillinglaw, Professor of English at San Jose State University, Director of the National Steinbeck Center, and author of Carol and John Steinbeck: Portrait of a Marriage, On Reading The Grapes of Wrath, and A Journey into Steinbeck’s California, will discuss Steinbeck and the legacy of The Grapes of Wrath.