George Steinmetz
feed the planet
George Steinmetz
Exhibition
Feed the Planet: George Steinmetz
Exhibition Dates: Saturday, November 16 - Saturday, December 28. Fridays 4:00 PM - 7:00 PM, Saturday and Sunday 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM.
Contact the gallery to schedule a group visit outside these regular hours.
Location: Bridge Gallery, #5 Pemberton St., Cambridge, MA. 02140
Since the domestication of plants began some 11,000 years ago, humans have converted 40% of the earth’s surface into farmland. With the global population expected to reach 9.7 billion by the year 2050, combined with the rising standard of living in rapidly developing nations, it is estimated that we will have to increase the global food supply by 60%. The Feed the Planet project examines how we can meet the rapidly expanding challenge of feeding humanity without putting more natural lands under the plow. Most of us only come into contact with raw food in the supermarket and are unaware of the methods used to raise it. The food industry often goes to significant lengths to prevent us from seeing how our food is produced. Access to this information is central to our decisions about what we eat, which cumulatively have a substantial environmental impact. This project seeks to show how our food is produced so that we can make more informed decisions.
ABOUT
Best known for his aerial photography, George Steinmetz has a restless curiosity for the unknown: remote landscapes, our changing climate, and how we can meet humanity's ever-expanding food needs. A regular contributor to National Geographic and the NY Times Magazine, he has explored subjects ranging from the remotest stretches of Arabia’s Empty Quarter to the deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest.
Since 1986, George has completed over 40 major photo essays for National Geographic and 25 stories for GEO magazine in Germany. His expeditions to the Sahara and Gobi deserts have been featured in separate National Geographic Explorer programs. In 2006, the National Science Foundation awarded him a grant to document the work of scientists in the Dry Valleys and volcanoes of Antarctica.
George has won numerous awards for photography during his 35-year career, including three prizes from World Press Photo. He has also won the Environmental Vision award from Pictures of the Year, a citation from the Overseas Press Club, and was named National Geographic’s Adventurer of the Year in 2008.
Born in California in 1957, George graduated from Stanford University with a degree in Geophysics. He began his career in photography after hitchhiking through Africa for 28 months. He spent fifteen years exploring the world’s deserts, mainly while piloting a motorized paraglider. This experimental aircraft enables him to capture unique images of the world, which are inaccessible by traditional aircraft and most other modes of transportation. His current projects are documenting climate change and the global food supply, primarily with professional drones. George lives in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, with his wife, writer and editor Lisa Bannon, and occasionally their three adult children, Nell and twin sons John and Nicholas.
