Foodscapes
Project aim
Foodscapes aims to explore how arts intervention and cultural engagement can help address social and economic exclusion, food poverty, and sustainability. It has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council/Economic and Social Research Council Connected Communities programme and runs from January 2013 to December 2013.
Project objectives
- Evaluate the role and potential of cultural engagement and arts interventions within alternative food systems initiatives.
- Plan and stimulate cultural engagement and arts interventions within alternative food systems.
- Support and enhance interchange between community organisations and research institutions.
- Develop a co-designed action research programme.
- Increase collaborative working between people involved in food production.
Methodology
The project worked with community partners to develop an intervention around food, with an artist to develop creative exchange with participants, the research team and other stakeholders. It involved a range of people beyond the research team to engage people in cultural experiences that stress the significance of food and nutrition (for example, MTP, ELM).
Preliminary findings
- Food enables us to explore relationships between people, place and things.
- Access to, and knowledge of food is controlled through social, cultural, economic and political networks which mean that access is denied to some, even in places where there is plenty.
- Socially engaged arts practice can help to address inequality and injustice in local food systems by providing knowledge and connections between growers, producers, distributors and consumers.
- Socially engaged arts practice can change knowledge and thinking about food through emotional engagement.
