Food and Life: The World According to Monsanto

Director: Marie-Monique Robin
Cast: David Baker, Ken Cook, David Carpenter
France, 109’, 2008, color
French with Turkish subtitles

Monsanto is the world leader in genetically modified organisms (GMOs), as well as one of the most controversial corporations in industrial history. This century-old empire has created some of the most toxic products ever sold, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and the herbicide Agent Orange. Based on a painstaking investigation, The World According to Monsanto puts together the pieces of the company’s history, calling on hitherto unpublished documents and numerous first-hand accounts. Today, Monsanto likes to style itself as a “life sciences” company. The leader in genetically modified seeds, engineered to resist its herbicide Roundup, claims it wants to solve world hunger while protecting the environment. In the light of its troubling past, can we really believe these noble intentions? Misleading reports, collusion, pressure tactics and attempts at corruption: the history of Monsanto is filled with disturbing episodes. Behind its clean, green image, Monsanto is tightening its grasp on the world seed market, striving for market supremacy to the detriment of food security and the global environment.

Food and Life: Food Beware, The French Organic Revolution

Food and Life: Food Beware, The French Organic Revolution

Food and Life: War and Peace in the Kitchen Garden

Food and Life: War and Peace in the Kitchen Garden

Food and Life: The World According to Monsanto

Food and Life: The World According to Monsanto

Food and Guts: Romantics Anonymous

Food and Guts: Romantics Anonymous

Food and Guts: Entre les Bras

Food and Guts: Entre les Bras

Food and Guts: Inventing Cuisine: Pierre Gagnaire

Food and Guts: Inventing Cuisine: Pierre Gagnaire

Food and Guts: Haute Cuisine

Food and Guts: Haute Cuisine

Food and Guts: A Matter of Taste

Food and Guts: A Matter of Taste

From the Age of Reason to the “Tortoise Trainer”

From the Age of Reason to the “Tortoise Trainer”

A Salon exhibition held in the Grand Palais in Paris on May 1, 1906 showcased an Ottoman painting. This was Osman Hamdi Bey’s famous “Tortoise Trainer”. 

Portrait of Martín Zapater (1797)

Portrait of Martín Zapater (1797)

Martín Zapater y Clavería, born in Zaragoza on November 12th 1747, came from a family of modest merchants and was taken in to live with a well-to-do aunt, Juana Faguás, and her daughter, Joaquina de Alduy. He studied with Goya in the Escuelas Pías school in Zaragoza from 1752 to 1757 and a friendship arose between them which was to last until the death of Zapater in 1803. 

The Search for Form

The Search for Form

A series of small and rather similar nudes Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu and Eren Eyüboğlu produced in the early 1930s almost resemble a ‘visual conversation’ that focus on a pictorial search. It is also possible to find the visual reflections of this earlier search in the synthesis Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu reached with his stylistic abstractions in the 1950s.