{"product_id":"first-meal-hardback-9780870712456","title":"First Meal (Hardback) 9780870712456","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eFirst Meal\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eJulie Green (Other), Kirk Johnson (Commentaries by)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9780870712456\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 31 December 2023\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e200 pages, 53 color images\u003cbr\u003e26.6 x 26.6 x 2.5 cm, 0.272 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eWith a parallel rise in DNA testing and widespread critique of police violence, civil asset forfeiture, and a host of other issues related to the American justice system, more and more attention is being paid to the issue of wrongful conviction and exoneration. In this innovative new work, artist Julie Green asks a simple question: when you’re stepping out of prison after spending years incarcerated for a crime you didn’t commit, what’s the first thing you want to eat? From the small details of life at such a moment, a vast new landscape of the world can emerge, and that is the core concept of \u003cem\u003eFirst Meal\u003c\/em\u003e. Against a backdrop of the flawed American legal system, something of beauty, pain, hope, and redemption can be found, centered around a seemingly simple question and response. The idea that a single meal can have huge meaning, or that food can have deep cultural and emotional resonance, is hardly new. The prison tradition of offering a condemned person a meal of choice before execution was long part of the media coverage of the death penalty, and has been explored as well by psychologists, documentary filmmakers, and others. Writers from Proust to Michael Pollan have explored the idea that food is never just food. Food is memory, emotion, and meaning. \u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e Green began \u003cem\u003eFirst Meal\u003c\/em\u003e in 2018 and partnered with the Center on Wrongful Convictions, part of Northwestern University’s School of Law, to gather the details of these food stories. As incorporated in the paintings, those exoneree stories are captured in the small details: state birds or flags from where the conviction took place, thumbprints representing DNA analysis, sentence dates, glow-in-the-dark skylines, and other symbols that work together to provide rounded portrayals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e Green’s paintings are paired with narrative accounts of those meals, written by Kirk Johnson, a former \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e reporter, and drawn from the release questionnaires and, when exonerees consent, from follow-up interviews with them and their families and legal teams. The synthesis of art and text brings tells these intimate, often wrenching stories of gratitude, grief, astonishment, disbelief, euphoria—often all combined into one moment—in a unique way. \u003ci\u003eFirst Meal\u003c\/i\u003e seeks to inform and spread awareness, but also serve as a celebration of the stories, freedom, and human interests that unite us all.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n","brand":"Oregon State University Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52580511252760,"sku":"9780870712456","price":27.69,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/first-meal-hardback-9780870712456","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}