Community Supported Agriculture: A Share of Bitter Melon

The food distribution ideology of the National Bitter Melon Council’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) operates using strategies and producing results that parallel Mail Art, a conceptual art practice that emerged in the 1960’s where visual art, sound, poetry, and other whimsical objects were distributed at random through the mail. This practice, among other motivations, sought to subvert commodity-based art distribution systems by sending the art objects by mail, thus giving the artist her/himself the power to exhibit and distribute her/his work.

And so, through collaboration with local CSA farms (6 growers and over 2500 CSA members), CSA: A share of Bitter Melon brought the experience of Bitter Melon to a random and diverse audience by distributing it through their individual farm shares and farmer’s market stands. By surreptitiously distributing Bitter Melon through the CSA system, we built community and dialogue around the common experience of foreignness this unique vine, vegetable and flavor evokes.