May 3 - June 14, 2009

Opening Reception: Sunday, May 3, 2-4pm

The M.O.L.D. project is a hot zone-themed wet lab and workshop that investigates the science, politics, and culture of food decomposition. The audience is invited to participate in various experiments and build their own amateur bioindicators (living species used to monitor the health of an environment or ecosystem) to assess food quality and safety. According to Finishing School, food molds have an anecdotal value in determining the quality of their hosts by demonstrating the presence of decay-fighting preservatives, additives, and genetic engineering. The goal of the installation is to engage participants in a critical experience and conversation about the quality and safety of the food we consume.

Students from El Camino College will assist the artists with the project. This project is generously funded by The James Irvine Foundation, Epson America, The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Getty Foundation, The California Community Foundation, and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.

About Finishing School

Formed in late 2001, Finishing School is a collective identity that explores art, design, and technology through interventions that conflate praxis, play, and activism. Finishing School attempts to demystify the experience of cultural production and engage viewers through various participatory models. Finishing School and their work has been presented extensively both nationally and internationally.

Finishing School was recently the inaugural participants in MOCA's Engagement Party, an ongoing "artists residency" program at MOCA in Los Angeles. Other current projects include Little Pharma, which investigates alternative medicines and lifestyles as a viable antidote to some of the drug industry's pathologies. Little Pharma consists of a series of workshops, roundtable meetings, lectures, weblog, community medicinal garden, and drug themed bike ride. Past projects include Public Interaction Objects (2006), a series of low-tech participatory objects such as meet/greet, a semi-autonomous drone designed to move through public spaces and greet individuals with multilingual salutations representing the six official languages of the United Nations; The Patriot Library (2003), a working library that provides access to books, periodicals, and other media considered "dangerous" by the United States government; and Saturday School (2001), a temporary, nomadic teaching institution offering multidisciplinary classes that dissect, question, and illuminate various aspects of everyday life.

Read more about Finishing School at their site www.finishing-school.net

www.flickr.com See all the images from the Finishing School: M.O.L.D. exhibition on our Flickr page