Swallow It Whole was initially organized in response to Michael Pollan’s description of what he
terms “Supermarket Pastoral,” a practice led by Whole Foods Market of relying on pleasing literature
and imagery to mask the inadequacies of an $11 billion dollar organic food industry. According to a
Whole Foods marketing consultant referenced by Pollan, the Whole Foods shopper is directed to feel
that by buying organic “he is engaging in authentic experiences and imaginatively enacting a return to a
utopian past with the positive aspects of modernity intact.” Knowing that large urban populations
cannot presently be served entirely by small, self-sustaining farms, the seven artists participating in
Swallow It Whole do not offer a polemic against the Whole Foods model – which is not without its positives
– but rather an attempt to shatter the seductive illusions offered by the Whole Foods marketing
campaigns and shopping experience. The issues confronted include:
1) While it is fair, as Pollan points out, to expect food grown in a sustainable manner to cost
more, Whole Foods has contributed to a sense of elitism associated with healthy eating by marking up
their goods high enough to earn the nickname “Whole Paycheck” and by only opening stores in areas
with high median incomes. Whole Foods is not independent of the industrial food chain (which would
perhaps justify such high prices) but rather dependent on its organic sector.
2) Whole Foods has a reputation for being one of the finest corporations to work for, but they
are in fact as vehemently anti-union as Wal-Mart, and research shows that the average Whole Foods
worker cannot actually afford to shop there. Whole Foods CEO John Mackey’s deceptive business
practices during the arguably monopolistic takeover of Wild Oats deserve further scrutiny than they
have received.
3) While the photography and literature at Whole Foods suggests their meat comes from happy
animals, terms like “humanely raised” and “free to roam” do not guarantee animals that have been
treated well. Whole Foods makes no attempt to encourage the moral and environmental benefits of
vegetarianism, making animal rights visionary Peter Singer’s endorsement of their deceptive
terminology rather perplexing.
4) The presentation of food at Whole Foods exacerbates consumer confusion about produce,
by presenting brightly colored, platonically shaped fruits and vegetables as better tasting than irregular
ones, and by making food available that is far out of season (such as the asparagus trucked from Argentina
to California in the winter that Pollan describes purchasing.)
The artists of Swallow It Whole include Sara Coffin, and Anwar Montasir, both members of The Space in
Long Island City; Nina Young, also of New York City; Matt Page and Ashley Watson of Lexington, Kentucky,
and Detroit collective RejectEffect, consisting of Timothy Gaewsky and Maria Prainito. They use a variety of
media including painting, drawing, photography, performance, and public intervention, as well as an
overarching interest in collaborative practice, to examine the fantasy that mass technology and modern
capitalism can positively coexist with nature. It is a fantasy with a conscience, preferable to the fantasies offered
by McDonald’s or Wal-Mart, but a fantasy nonetheless.