EXHIBITION & PUBLIC PROGRAM
BEYOND THE PLOT:
RESISTANCE AGAINST
THE DELINEATION
OF LAND AND PRACTICE
IN AGRICULTURE
APRIL 13-18, 2026
EXPERIMENTAL GALLERY
OLIVE TJADEN HALL
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
April 13-17
8:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Exhibition
Beyond the Plot
April 13,
5:00-7:00 PM
Panel Discussion
Undercurrents: Navigating the Colonial Legacies in Agriculture
April 15,
5:00-7:00 PM
Reception & Readings
Thinking with Land as a Collective Space
April 18
2:00-3:00 PM
Farm & Mural Visit
West Haven Farm
EXHIBITION
APRIL 13-18, 2026
The exhibition Beyond the Plot is part of a long-term, multifaceted research project of the same name that explores concepts of control and resistance in agriculture. The title plays on the word “plot” simultaneously as an enclosed area of land and the structure of a narrative. At once, the work examines both the current delimitations of land and thought imposed by extractivist USDA policy, and the everyday forms of resistance enacted by small-scale farmers and land-cultivation groups against imperial agricultural systems in Upstate New York.
Event location:
Experimental Gallery, Olive Tjaden Hall, Cornell University
Open on weekdays from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM
↓ Next PANEL DISCUSSIONAPRIL 13, 5:00 - 7:00 PM
Undercurrents: Navigating the Colonial Legacies in Agriculture
Information coming soon.
Event location:
Room 326, Olive Tjaden Hall, Cornell University
Panelists:
Courtesy of Silvia BottinelliCourtesy of Garrett Graddy-Lovelace
Silvia Bottinelli (PhD University of Pisa) is Full Teaching Professor in the Visual and Material Studies Department, School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Prof. Bottinelli's expertise focuses on food and ecocriticism in contemporary art, as well as 20th and 21st century Italian Art. She recently published the single-authored books Artists and the Practice of Agriculture. Politics and Aesthetics of Food Sovereignty in Art since 1960 (Routledge 2024) and Double-Edged Comforts: Domestic Life in Modern Italian Art and Visual Culture (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2021). Garrett Graddy-Lovelace researches and teaches agricultural policy and agrarian geography. Her work focuses on domestic and international contexts and impacts of US food and farm policy--from critical analysis of commodity and conservation programs to the geopolitical ecologies of food aid and hunger, from farmlabor to intellectual property regimes. Drawing on histories of anti/colonialism and geographies of de/coloniality, she studies crop diversity conservation, food/data/land sovereignty, and the return of traditional ecological knowledge. This includes community-based research-action with grassroots groups on the Farm Bill (see disparitytoparity.org project and Pointing the Farm Bill toward Racial Justice project).
↓ Next RECEPTION & READING SESSION APRIL 15, 5:00-7:00 PM
Thinking with Land as a Collective Space
Join Katie Rueff, María Bulla and Carla Rangel García in a collective reading session, sharing excerpts from books and songs that talk about resistance movements in agriculture, indigenous and campesino-led land management, and alternative food cultivation practices. This session is the result of conversations held in their reading group Thinking with Land as a Collective Space (sponsored by the Institute for Comparative Modernities).
Event location:
Experimental Gallery, Olive Tjaden Hall, Cornell University
Co-organizers
Courtesy of Maria BullaCourtesy of Katie Rueff
María Bulla is a music maker. She creates small handmade objects and oversized scores, she writes songs, makes sounds with a synthesizer and combines them with texts and field recordings; all this with the hope of creating situations that become part of everyday life. She has a project called hacemos bulla, a gift-making project with the purpose of reminding us that we are noise makers, we make noise.If, as María says, we are noise makers, then Katie is compelled by our (sound)waves. Not partial to a particular form, she is wondering in the wake of these waves. Katie is thinking about the architecture of our living, and the forces of our movements. Right now, she is working on a thesis asking how antiblackness is re/produced through "modern technology."
↓ Next FARM & MURAL VISIT
April 18, 2:00-3:00 PM
West Haven Farm
On Saturday, April 18, Lorena Mendoza and Carlos Aguilera will lead a tour of West Haven Farm and share the meaning behind the mural covering their farmhouse.
www.westhavenfarm.net
Location:
West Haven Farm
27 Rachel Carson Way, Ithaca, NY
Transportation:
If you are interested in joining but neeed transportation, write to cr647@cornell.edu
A car share will be leaving from Olive Tjaden Hall at 1:40.
Courtesy of West Haven Farm
↓ Next
BEYOND THE PLOT
This project was genereously supported by the Cornell College of Architecture, Art, and
Planning’s Engagement Impact Grant, Cornell Council for the Arts, The Institute for Comparative Modernities and the Rural Humanities Micro-Grant.
For more information:
Carla Rangel Garcia
www.carlarangelgarcia.com
cr647@cornell.edu