Benner challenges the existing academic structure of the meeting room by having people engage with the practical qualities of the room rather than treating it simply as a neutral space of theory. In the middle of this room is a large elliptical plastic tabletop- container through which one can see a complex layering of various foods and seeds, arranged in radiating rows centring on an historical map of the Americas, from which all of the food presented originates. Sitting at this table it is virtually impossible to overlook these uneven columns of farmed foods found just below the surface – a telling visual metaphor – which conceptually insinuate themselves into discussions and activities that take place within this environment. Every surface, every element of the room is treated this way. On the walls are framed photographs with living material piled underneath; on the floor in the corner of the room is a stack of produce boxes; on the black shelving unit that almost takes up a complete wall there are books and various objects all dealing with food from different perspectives – pieces of plant-based material including leaves, dried flowers, seed pods and chocolate, and at the back of each square unit, a photograph. In Transend: Meeting Room every surface is a point of juxtaposition between image and living product, the room itself becoming a container inside of which the smaller connections are made part of a larger relational framework. Benner’s use of the word ‘transend’ instead of ‘transcend’ speaks to a vital need to address a form of cultural and subjective exchange that no longer is tied to Enlightenment notions of cultural superiority or advancement. Learning in Transend: Meeting Room is not a matter of rising above, but rather of becoming connected, a lateral movement of knowledge that is non-hierarchical. As Benner tells the story, he and Jamelie Hassan were driving down the 401 when they passed a truck with the word ‘transend’ on its side; they looked at each other and smiled. 2 To tran-send is to approach the world dialogically, creating a personal ethics located in relationships, both present and absent, that define the place where one lives. Discussing the way he brings together politics and food, Benner tells curator Barbara Fischer: It is an attempt at letting the objects speak, or letting the information speak for itself, and by putting it altogether to create a dialogue that can happen between, let’s say an object and another object, or an object and a written text, so that, hopefully, as a viewer you also become part of the dialogue. 3 With Transend: Meeting Room Benner presents an architectonics of agriculture that questions the structural relation between a product, its mode of production and its consumption. The broader gesture is an invitation to question the politics and ethics of our very own being in the world. c
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2 Ron Benner, in conversation with Julian Haladyn, London, Ontario, June 4 2013 3 Barbara Fischer. ‘An Interview with Ron Benner’, in Ron Benner: Gardens of a Colonial Present . London: Museum London, 2008. p113
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