AN ECOLOGY OF FOOD

What is food? Food is: agriculture, economy, culture, and conversation, ancestral recipes, weavers of tables cloths, traditions of seasons, the perfect onion, a child’s berry stained chin… Food is poetry, medicine, friendship, time, poison, economy. Ask the question “What is food?”– and the answer is not: The stuff on my plate. The answer is that food is about relationships. These relationships are formed between generations that plant together, between man and nature, between the family members who eat together, it is in the conversation, in the heritage of the basket weaver who makes the baskets that are used to take food to neighbouring villages for market. It is in the relationship between towns economically. Seeds used in ceremony, represent long-term linkages between people, nature, cycles, and attitudes toward the future.

In conjunction with therapist Mauro Mariotti, expert on childhood and adolescent eating disorders this exciting project widens the scope of information and therapeutic possibilities. We address the many aspects of food in order to elucidate the larger patterns of interaction.

Artifacts and Outcomes: Publications, exhibitions, workshops, therapies, further agricultural research, economic pathways.