Metabolic Studio Public SalonDan EtheridgeFriday, September 4, 2009 @ NoonFree Admission

A New Food Landscape in post-Katrina New Orleans

About the Salon

This salon will present the collaborative work of the Tulane City Center (TCC) and the New Orleans Food and Farm Network (NOFFN) in their efforts to support the growing urban farming/local food movement in New Orleans. Although part of a national trend, the projects presented here also grew out of a post disaster context that has enabled many new visions to emerge with a high probability of success.

The salon will specifically look at two larger scale initiatives in the New Orleans area: the Viet Village Urban Farm (a proposed 28acre urban farm and farmers market in the principal Vietnamese nighborhood in New Orleans) and the Hollygrove Growers Market and Farm (a smaller local growers market and urban farming training center).

These projects differ in scale and intent, however they were both supported by the TCC/NOFFN collaboration that brought design, planning, technical and other skills to projects that had great community support and a piece of land. We feel we have developed a model to support groups that lack the resources to access these skill sets, and the projects we will present showcase how these community generated initiatives can begin to garner the momentum they need to become reality.

About the Salon Presenter

Dan Etheridge is Associate Director of the Tulane City Center and Adjunct Lecturer at the Tulane School of Architecture. Dan has a degree in Applied Environmental Management from Southern Cross University in New South Wales, Australia, is a Fellow of the Institute for Environmental Communications at Loyola University New Orleans, and has worked for the last five years at the intersection of regional coastal restoration strategies and urban design and policy. He has been published in environmental science and management journals, design publications and community advocacy forums and continues to work across these disciplines in research and practice. In addition, Dan is a partner in the environmental consulting practice Meffert + Etheridge Environmental Projects that specializes in bringing sound ecological practice and communication to design, planning and development projects.

Further information: www.tulanecitycenter.org

Image: Tulane City Center, courtesy Dan Etheridge