MILPA / MAIZ

I don't have this sort of connection with a food. I don't base my identity on a crop or even a land in any way close. So I cannot relate to the capacity for love and for devastation that comes with that oneness.
A friend recently spoke to me of his work, which was studying trans-genetics in corn in Mexico. He is from Mexico city, but still he was an outsider because he was an expert, a scientist. His work is important because the transparency is important. But is is also painful in a way that is hard to understand for those of us without such a connection to a plant/food. He said to me that he did a horrible thing. He said he was helping people, bringing them truth, but in actuality what he did was go to people and say "While you were sleeping last night, a stranger came and burrowed into your body....and worse, yet.....the stranger is an American." And when the man or woman would say, "But look at me...I see nothing.", he answered, "That is the worst of it.....It is invisible, but it is there." That is what trans-genetics in corn is to a Mexican peasant. It is worse than a betrayal by a lover, because it is a betrayal of ones own skin.

I will be trying to create this sense through things which I do relate with, but it is a tall order. The love and the betrayal will be there. The coca cola in the hand of the pilgrim, and the transparency that is undesired. But my aesthetic is missing some senses. It is missing taste. My piece is not finished.