I’ve finally started working on my animation of the ancient Sumerian myth of the first shade garden. Right now I think that all of the plants are going to be embroidered…. here are a few samples, as well as the originals I was using as my guides.
My embroidered rendering of two ancient relief carvings of trees.
I took this photo in the Assyrian Hall at the British Museum.
I didn't do so well on the embroidery of this one, maybe because I did it by firelight? Or maybe simply because I need a bit more practice.
A friend sent me an upsetting article a few days ago from The Iraq Oil Report about how Iraq’s efforts to quintuple its oil production in the next 7 years is displacing a large numbers of farmers and upsetting ancient farming villages in Southern Iraq. There is also a national plan for the country to become self-sufficient in wheat production in 2 years, so clearly the Ministry of Oil and Ministry of Agriculture need to better coordinate their efforts; though according to the article, the Ministry of Oil’s word reigns supreme. It’s true that oil is the largest source of revenue in the Iraqi economy, but agriculture has the potential to employ a greater percentage of the population and would allow the country to be less dependent on the global economy. Official government policy is to offer affected farmers jobs in the oil industry, for a country that still has to import 70% of its food supply this solution seems less than ideal.
A photo of the early origins of wheat in Mesopotamia, taken by my friend Nicholas Hall, who visited the Jardin des Plantes, a botanical garden in Paris founded in 1626 last month.
The 1931 wheat harvest at the farm in Western Pennsylvania where I was born. My grandfather is the one looking at the camera in the photo on the right. Double-click to see larger image.
I just found an old photo album from the early years of my grandparent’s marriage. Honeymoon in Havana, fishing trips on the Atlantic and life at the family farm in Pennsylvania. My grandfather, who I never met, took over the farm from his dad, and my dad in his day took it over, turning it into an organic soy and corn cooperative. We moved away when I was 6, and my memories aren’t of the fields at all, but rather popping tar bubbles on the road and playing in the corn silo and the barn. I didn’t know wheat was ever grown there until I saw this photo. In all likelihood it was just used for animal feed, but it’s still nice that there is some wheat growing in my personal history as well…
This weekend some friends and I floated the Willamette River from Eugene to Corvallis. The trip was called the Wheat Fleet and its purpose was to support local agriculture by bringing attention to grain and dry bean growers in the Willamette Valley. Beyond being a lot of fun, it was a nice reminder of how important it is to me to also bring what I’m doing with The Iraqi Seed Project back home.
When we were filming the wheat harvest in Iraqi Kurdistan, Alexi (my sound man, agriculture adviser, traveling companion, etc.) commented to me how strange it was that we rarely visited local Oregon farmers back home. And it’s true; we flew halfway around the world to film something that is also occurring in our own back yard. But I actually think that it’s that connection, the things we share, that makes the whole experience so much more meaningful and gives it greater relevance. So two weeks ago we visited Darrell Smucker of J&D Farms in Harrisburg and filmed his local soft-wheat harvest for part of a video I’m doing about Wheat Fleet for Kitchen Caravan. He let me drive the combine, which was very exciting, but the coolest part was being able to talk about Iraqi farmers and the Iraqi wheat harvest with him while I helped harvest this local wheat. We can learn from each other, all of us, and I like that.
Wheat harvest outside of Erbil, Iraq in June 2010
The wheat harvest of Harrisburg, Oregon in August 2010
Local beans and grains of the Willamette Valley, Oregon
The Tiziano Project just wrapped up a 2-month workshop in Erbil training local journalists in New Media skills. I learned about their project just after I left Erbil, but spoke with them when I was in Baghdad to see if any of their students might want to produce pieces on agriculture for The Iraqi Seed Project. Below is a video on grain harvest in Erbil by Zana Mamundy, you can follow his website here. Please be sure to check out the rest of the pieces from The Tiziano Project’s workshop. They are doing excellent and exciting work.
We are excited to welcome Sam as our new intern, he is a senior at the University of Oregon’s Journalism school and started helping out last week. As I write, he is transcribing interviews with USDA’s team in Baghdad. He’s also been busy organizing articles and research materials for the Library. Thank you Sam!
How to make it: fill a 2-quart canning jar (my iced tea-making vessel of choice) with 4 black tea bags and boiling water. Let cool to room temperature and then refrigerate. When you're ready to drink it, get your glass, add half a packet of stevia, juice from half a lemon, a dash of rosewater and 3-4 ice cubes, then fill up the rest of the glass with your chilled iced tea. You can flavor and sweeten the whole batch at once, but it's not as much fun. Also, I realize my instructions might sound a little obsessive compulsive, it's just that I've had a lot of time to perfect it; and those are the right proportions, I promise.
I’ve been working from home these past few weeks, organizing, logging and internally processing the footage and material collected on my trip in June.* As I’ve been doing so, I have also been sipping on my new favorite iced tea invention. It really tastes like something special (if I do say so myself), and since it’s also slightly middle-eastern inspired I thought I’d post it here so that anyone who wishes can see what my footage logging experience of these past weeks has been tasting like.
* Already more than a month ago! Time is flying by way too fast.
In the spring I applied for a few grants for post-production and web development to support our work this summer. Two were a bit of a stretch in terms of mission statement, so I wasn’t surprised that we didn’t get them; there was a third I was holding out for with much hope. Today I finally heard back from them… also no.
My mom read a nice quote to me over the phone this evening, it felt applicable on multiple levels somehow:
“A small seed, which has neither force nor arms, accepts conditions of darkness, pressure, cold and dampness. Instead of complaining or blaming others, it uses these conditions as sources of energy. In the same way, man can lead a free life and be at peace with himself.”
-George Ohsawa from the essay “Education of the Will”
I guess that’s not really a new plan, but it is something I will hold in mind as I forge ahead out here in rural Oregon, figuring out how to make it all come true.
On our filming trip in June it became evident that agricultural life in Northern Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan) is completely distinct from the rest of the country. There are a few reasons for this, but the security situation is an obvious place to start. Because the Kurdish region has been semi-autonomous since the 1990s, they have a head start on the rest of the country in terms of reconstruction, they have also not had to deal with issues of sectarian violence to the same degree that other areas of the country have. As a result what we found in Erbil and Sulaimaniyah was something of an agricultural boom. The Kurdish region has always been one of the major food producing areas for the whole country. While farmers and agricultural advisers in the rest of Iraq are talking about rebuilding irrigation systems and getting farmers to move back to their land, the Kurdish Ministry of Agriculture is implementing a plan for the region to be entirely self-sufficient in food production by 2012, though ambitious this goal does not seem remotely unrealistic.
For all of these reasons we are launching Seeds of Kurdistan, a sister site to The Iraqi Seed Project that will highlight agriculture in the Kurdistan region. Once our library on this site is built, we will cross-post the content, but for now enjoy exploring the wonderful world of agriculture in Iraqi Kurdistan on its very own website: http://seedsofkurdistan.tumblr.com/
