Land of Milk & Honey

California’s Agricultural Histories in Contemporary Art

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The MexiCali Biennial continues its collaboration with the Hispanic Reading Room at the Library of Congress in an upcoming Story Map contextualizing Land of Milk & Honey, a series of exhibitions which interrogate ideals of agriculture and foodways and the symbiotic relationship between California and Mexico. For the StoryMap, curators have selected four artists from the exhibition that were exhibited at “The Cheech”, a repository with strong holdings of Chicana/o/x art – much of which the museum’s namesake, actor-comedian Cheech Marin donated. The chosen artists’ works visually communicate their personal histories, connections, and experiences with topics around the Land of Milk & Honey, which was inspired by John Steinbeck’s views of California as a corrupted Eden. Researchers Samuel White and Daniel Velazquez then connected these concepts with digital resources available at the Library of Congress to identify historical patterns, bridging the past with the present. The StoryMap will serve as a visual study guide to the influences of border art, the relationships between neighboring countries, and the agricultural histories of California and Mexico, from an art historical perspective.

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