NOPALOGY

AGRI + CULTURAL FUTURES FOR THE NOPAL
THE ICONIC, CULINARY, PRICKLY PEAR CACTUS

NOPALOGY is a four-part, environmental initiative, that seeks to expand the exceptional potentials of the edible Nopal cactus as a FUTURE FOOD into colder climate regions which are in the process of aridification due to climate change. The iconic Nopal (from Nahuatl - nopalli ) is the cultivated variety of prickly-pear cactus pads, Opuntia ficus-indica, grown and eaten throughout Mexico. The nutritious Nopal, an ancient and contemporary symbol of Mexican identity and resistance, grows in lean soils with minimal water, earning it a place as one of the 50 Future Foods and supporting Drawdown aims for the food system.

Unlike traditional agronomic inquiry, NOPALOGY is an artist-led interrogative network that engages collaboration between diverse actors including: farmers, ethnobotanists, agronomists, culinary artists, biotechnologists, and other practitioners, to examine four interrelated questions:

• Can culinary Nopal be bred to grow in colder climates?
• Should Nopal seeds be “banked” for conservation and future food security?
• How can we secure the knowledge of Nopal growing for climate resilience?
• What are the aesthetic potentials of Nopal pigments?

Nopalogy addresses the major themes of our time: water, food sovereignty, climate resilience, biodiversity, and cultural expression + identity.

How can we secure the knowledge of Nopal growing for future generations?

4 QUESTIONS

KNOWLEDGE - THE NOPAL GROWERS COMMUNITY ARCHIVE
Cultivated in Mexico for thousands of years, the globally important knowledge of growing Nopal is stewarded by small scale Nopal producers throughout Mexico, who form a diverse and yet specialized community of practice. These growers are aging and now being replaced by large scale agribusinesses, threatening the loss of sustainable methods and knowledge. Working with the Unión Mexicana De Productores De Nopal, we will co-create a participatory community archive with Nopal growers, the traditional stewards of Nopal. To encourage new global food cultures, we will also produce a Farm to Table cookbook of Nopalitos preparation techniques and recipes with Milpa Alta Chef Jorge Córcega.

COLD - HARDY VARIETIES - Working across borders with the Indigenous Food Sovereignty Program of the Desert Farming Initiative and the Cushman Opuntia Lab at the University of Nevada, Reno, and Art/Science Initiative at Tecnológico de Monterrey we aim to breed or identify a cold-hardy variety of Nopal for temperate climates, expanding the geographic future of Nopal. Northern New Mexico and Nevada have endemic Opuntia species, comparable elevations and rainfall, and warming is predicted. Could this new crop be useful for climate adaptation and food security globally?

SEED - If plant breeding is required, are viable genetic resources/seed available? Are Nopal seeds and their ecologies understood? Do culinary varieties produce “true seed”? Are conservation measures in place to secure these seeds and their communities into the future? Should we secure seed of important varieties in global seed banks such as CIMMYT and Svalsvard? Are these measures underway?

PIGMENT
Working with both traditional and experimental lake pigment processes, we are working to understand the aesthetic potentials and stabilization of fugitive pigments made from the fruits of Nopal known as Tunas. These fruit pigments resemble but are unrelated to the familiar red cochineal dye, also associated with Nopal but generated by insects. Known also for their nutritional value these special “betalain” pigments from Tuna fruits inherently carry deep purple/blue color.

Let the plant speak for itself.

Credit: B. C. Freitas-Dörr + et al, Science Advances, Volume 6 # 14, 2020

The agro-cultural-ecology of Nopal reaches back into deeptime and leans forward into a climate-adaptive future.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

The NOPALOGY project as a whole, contributes to the environment and society with concrete food sovereignty + security benefits for global populations, by redirecting agricultural practices, championing the use of arid lands, reducing food miles, reducing water use for agriculture, securing genetic resources and traditional knowledge for future generations, protecting water and ecosystems, and supporting both biodiversity and cultural expression.

THEORY of CHANGE

NOPALOGY demonstrates Walter Mignolo's post-colonial strategy EPISTEMIC DISOBEDIENCE, challenging the dis-integrative mindset of the western episteme, upending traditional hierarchies of knowledge, expertise, scale, duration, and impact. It adopts instead, the “diplomacy of art” a symbolic and practical handshake across borders, manifesting AND/AND, a radical dot-connecting, generosity.

This includes the obvious borders of art/science ¬ LaTour’s “great divide” of nature and culture, but also dynamic interchanges and transactional borders such as the aesthetic borders between material practices and social engagement, the geographic borders between New Mexico and Mexico, and the heterotemporality of cultural heritage and food futures.

Perhaps most important is the non-anthroponormative proposition that the Nopal prickly pear is a worthy vehicle for such an investigation, aligning NOPALOGY with the most radical post-humanist and vegetal consciousness perspectives. NOPALOGY operates well beyond the conventional paradigms of eco-art, and art/science collaborations, intentionally blurring epistemology and the ontological, and expanding art’s field of operations for greater agency.