Your Sitka Local Foods Network will host a free Alaska premiere of the Lexicon of Sustainability pop-up gallery art show from 6:30-8:30 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 28, at the Back Door Café. Samples of a kale feta salad featuring kale grown in Sitka at St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm will be available, and the Back Door Café will be selling drinks and food during the show.

So what is the Lexicon of Sustainability? According to the website, “The Lexicon of Sustainability is based on the simple premise: People will live more sustainably if they understand the basic terms and principles that will define the next economy.” The Lexicon of Sustainability features dozens of large photos of our food and farming systems, water and energy, with a variety of topics defined on each photo, such as food security, sustainable fisheries, farm to table, permaculture, etc.

“The Lexicon of Sustainability illuminates the vocabulary of sustainable agriculture, and with it, the conversation about America’s rapidly evolving food culture. The Lexicon of Sustainability educates, engages and activates people to pay closer attention to how they eat, what they buy, and where their responsibility begins for creating a healthier, safer food system in America.”

In addition to the photos, the Lexicon of Sustainability includes a book, “Local: The New Face of Food and Farming in America,” by Douglas Gayeton. The project also was featured in a “Know Your Food” series of short films on PBS. Copies of Local have been ordered by Old Harbor Books and will be available for purchase soon.

“I had the good fortune to view the Lexicon of Sustainability art show at the Food Justice Conference in Oakland in 2012,” Sitka Local Foods Network Board President Lisa Sadleir-Hart said. “As conference attendees gathered around the posters, amazing conversations sprung up and started us thinking collaboratively about solutions and make connections with each other. I couldn’t wait to use art this way to stimulate social change conversations in Sitka around food.”

This will be the first of several Lexicon of Sustainability shows in Sitka, before the photos move north to Anchorage and the rest of the state (this batch of photos will remain in Anchorage with the Alaska Food Policy Council for future shows around the state). The photos from this first show will be on display through Saturday, Sept. 13, at the Back Door Café. Future Sitka shows include a Sitka Local Foods Network fundraiser in late October at the Sitka Fine Arts Camp/Sheldon Jackson Campus, and possibly a show at the University of Alaska Southeast Sitka Campus at a date TBA.

To learn more about this project, contact Lisa Sadleir-Hart at sitkalocalfoodsnetwork@gmail.com.