Permissions

Blue Ridge Mountains, 2023-

A developing series following my childhood best friend and her family in North Carolina where they steward seven acres, hand growing organic food for their surrounding communities and their own expanding family.

As our generation, and the next, continues to move away from rural life and large corporations consolidate control over food production, the U.S. is expected to see nearly 300 million acres of farmland change hands over the next two decades. Her family and their work exists within this broader political and economic shift, raising questions about who is allowed to shape the future of rural America and its food systems.

Coming from California and Canada, Erica and Sean’s path reflects a contemporary reimagining of the American Dream - one rooted less in expansion, but more in return: to land, to self-sufficiency, and to forms of care that bind community.

In this endeavor, their seven acres feel almost utopian: a quiet, but deliberate act of resistance.