FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 27, 2007

CONTACT:
Michael Johnson, Director of Communications
816-421-1388
michael@maaa.org

Hungry Planet Launches National Tour in Redding, California
Exhibition documents the food consumption trends of cultures from around the world

Hungry Planet: What the World Eats, opens July 5th at the Turtle Bay Exploration Park in Redding, California, to begin its national tour. Hungry Planet is a fascinating photo essay documenting 12 families from 12 countries, providing a thought-provoking analysis of worldwide food consumption, and examining what we as global citizens share—or lack.

Toured by ExhibitsUSA, a national program of Mid-America Arts Alliance, this exhibition includes interviews with families from Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cuba, Ecuador, Greenland, Italy, Japan, Mali, Mexico, Mongolia, Turkey, and the United States. Hungry Planet was organized by COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts in Napa, California, and will tour though the summer of 2011.

Visitors will experience the exhibition’s 48 color photographs, depicting everything from American drive-thru fast food restaurants and lavishly stocked bakery displays to Cuban food ration cards, waterside markets in Mali, and Ecuadorians cooking in open-air kitchens, which documents sharp contrasts and universal aspects of an essential human pursuit.

Photojournalist Peter Menzel and writer Faith D’Aluisio investigated food and eating habits around the world, documenting a fascinating exploration of comparative world nutrition. For their study, Menzel and D’Aluisio spent time with typical families in each country, discussing their eating habits, calculating a week’s worth of food purchases, and accompanying families to the marketplace to document local customs and traditions.

Enhanced by an overview of each country’s environmental conditions and socio-economic status, Hungry Planet uniquely grasps cross-cultural realities, united by one commonality—all humans must eat, but what and how we eat varies wildly.

Mid-America Arts Alliance, founded in 1972, is a nonprofit regional arts organization based in Kansas City, Missouri. It is governed by a board of directors drawn from its partner states of Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas. Major support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, participant state arts agencies, and leading foundations and corporations.

For more information, please contact Andrew Graham at (816) 421-1388, ext. 225.