Nicholas and Aliyah will work together in a collaboration to merge visual arts and technology to create a sustainable system to provide healthy eating options to a region identified as a food desert. Nicholas, founder of Square Root Academy, will pilot Project Green Thumb, to address the inequities around food access by leveraging technology, education, and horticulture in order to create a sustainable system to provide healthy eating options in a community that has a deficit in this regard.
Sacramento, CA
Within the city of Sacramento, there are a few areas that have been identified by the USDA as a food desert which is defined as a heavily impoverished region with little to no food access within a one-mile radius. Categorized by the USDA as a food desert, the Meadowview community is the focus of the project which will take place at the Sam and Bonnie Pannell Community Center, with the physical structure of the hydroponics system being housed on the outside of the facility on the northern portion of the building.
Aliyah will lend her unique artistic voice to the project, infusing it with bold and powerful visual arts elements. Using art as a tool to connect with her community (she was raised and currently lives in District 8) her mission has been to teach people of all backgrounds to understand and uplift themselves and each other. Her work is concerned with making images of black people; “telling a story through my eyes of the people in my everyday life, including myself.”
Together and separately, each artist will connect with the youth at the Center to nourish – both literally and figuratively – them through art, education, and technology.
Melissa Cirone
MCirone@cityofsacramento.org