To celebrate Farm Aid's 40 years of fighting for family farms, I created this art to remind people that Farm Aid provides a voice for people who don't have the kind of resources that corporate agriculture does. Farm Aid was founded in 1985 by Willie Nelson, Neil Young, and John Mellencamp as a concert to raise awareness about the loss of family farms and to raise funds to keep farm families on the land. It continues to operate the music festival to keep that mission alive with the next Farm Aid concert taking place on September 20th in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
With this piece, "Farms Not Factories," I wanted to tell the story of independent farmers working on their land, as opposed to the big corporate farms that have a huge amount of land and workers. I incorporated historical images of various rallies from Farm Aid organizers over the years, as well as some newspaper clippings from the archives within the ripped collage layers of the illustration. Independent farming is a solitary endeavor, which I showcase with the lone farmhouse situated on the vast landscape, but with Farm Aid, farmers can work together for their interests rather than be overrun by big corporations. Please take a moment to read more about Farm Aid and support this effort by purchasing this print!
-Shepard
PRINT DETAILS: Farms Not Factories. 18 x 24 inches. Screen print on 80# cream Speckletone paper. Signed by Shepard Fairey. Numbered edition of 500. Comes with a Digital Certificate of Authenticity provided by Verisart. $70
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