MONSANTO AS IMAGE MAKER: FEEDING THE WORLD LIES

Abstract

My thesis confronts Monsanto, the leader in corporate agriculture, as an image maker. Combining visual analysis with information from the company’s internal documents, interviews, books, studies, and exposés elucidates how Monsanto’s representations reflect -- and distort -- reality. By juxtaposing the advertisements everyone sees with the literature left in academia, I aim to reduce the gap between what some know and what many are led to believe. Throughout, I will address key art-historical themes: the moving image, iconography, medium specificity, activist art, mass culture, and visual literacy.