Eating, Energy, Environment: How We Got it Wrong the First Time

Rick Prelinger introduces a program of short industrial, advertising, and educational films from his archives, focusing on food as the center of a complex system enabled by mid-20th-century science and industry.

How did our perceptions of America's food production system change from bounty to dread? And what can past corporate persuasions tell us about the present and future? Films include The Man in the Doorway (American Cyanamid, 1956), a dystopian parable explaining why societies starve and die; The Color of Health (American Bakers Association, 1954), an existentialist epic on children and nutrition; and the newly discovered vegetable-patch comedy Gardening Made Easy (Henry Charles, 1949). (program app. 90 mins., video)

The films included in the program are:

Color of Health (Fred A. Niles Communications Center for American Bakers Association, 1954), 10 min.

Feeding the World (Farming): A Film Lesson in Vocational Guidance (Neighborhood Motion Picture Service, ca. 1927), 13 min.

Give Us This Day (Felber Maasdam for Oregon Wheat Growers League, ca. 1950), 25 min.

Man in the Doorway (MPO Productions for Monsanto Chemical Co., 1956), 31 min.

Gardening Made Easy (Henry Charles, 1949), 13 min.

Prelinger, who also visited during last year's Field & Screen series, is the founder of the Prelinger Archives, a collection of 60,000 educational and industrial films. The collection was acquired by the Library of Congress in 2002. (Visit prelinger.com for more information about Prelinger and the collection.)

Come early to learn more about upcoming plans for the Market at 15th & High and CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) from Jaime Moore of Wayward Seed Farm at the Market and CSA Preview.

Field & Screen 2011 is supported by community partners Dine Originals Columbus, Global Gallery, Local Matters, Slow Food Columbus, and Wayward Seed Farm.