A FOODCULTURE DAY IN VALAIS

MAPS Symposium : A FOODCULTURE DAY

For this spring symposium, MAPS invites foodculture days and its curator Simon Würsten Marin, who has put together a tasty program for a day of reflection and experimentation on food, nature, and the landscape.

foodculture days is a cultural platform for sharing knowledge and know-how about food, art, and the environment. It aims to develop artistic and transdisciplinary projects that address the intrinsic link between food and ecology in order to promote social and environmental justice. Founded by Margaux Schwab in 2017 in Vevey, foodculture days has hosted and organized numerous events in Switzerland and abroad and is the initiator of the eponymous biennial. The 4th edition of the foodculture days biennial will take place in Vevey from May 26 to June 4, 2023.

foodculture days’ ambition is to explore food and (re)discover its multiple meanings and functions in our daily lives, as well as the tangible or imperceptible impact of our choices on the global environment by bringing together artists, scientists, farmers, cooks, philosophers, activists, local experts, elders, and many other forms of knowledge, both human and non-human. As cultural producers, foodculture days approaches food as a subject of research, a medium, and as a tool for convivial interaction as well as symbiotic encounters.

https://foodculturedays.com

PROGRAM

The program is split across workshops between which groups of students will be rotating throughout the day.

09h45 Meeting at Théâtre les Halles

10h00 Welcome

10h30 1st Workshop Sessions

12h15 “Names for Thinking the Earth: A Brief Anti-Colonial History of Plants’ Journeys through Food”

13h45 2nd Workshop Sessions

15h30 3rd Workshop Session in groups

17h00 Wrap-up

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WORKSHOPS

INERT?
by nyamnyam

Recent work in several art forms has been referring to the connection with other species, but what is our relationship with those everyday objects and materials that we consider to be inert, or lifeless? What if the distinction between subjects and objects was mere fiction, a way to justify the hierarchy of humans over non-humans? How can we relate in more horizontal ways with materials considered to be inert?

INERT? is an experimental research project that seeks to explore and momentarily inhabit this question to open up possible timeframes, rhythms, scales, spaces, relationships and mutual effects with the materials that cohabit the stage and with those that make up our most immediate ecosystems. If we try to achieve a possible symmetry between our own positions and those of these objects, and if we are affected on the same level with/from/against the material that makes up our respective bodies, perhaps we can perceive and trace out the continuities that have always existed between us.

Nyamnyam is a space and collective from Catalonia created in 2012 by artists Iñaki Alvarez and Ariadna Rodríguez. Joining their formations and deformations in various disciplines, their work aims to promote creation, diffraction and knowledge exchange through sharing strategies in each g-local context in which they work. In this crossroad of performing arts, critical thought, pedagogy and social interaction, they create interventions to activate each context’s fabric in a holistic sense, incorporating organisms (human scale and others), systems, environments, relationships and others… They have carried out and shared their projects in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Norway, Greece, USA, Colombia and Ecuador.

“Urban agro-ecology, islands of resistance & regeneration”
by Kenza Benabderrazik

The day will be articulated around Gwen's urban garden in Sierre, the history it carries and the uncertain future that awaits it. An island of resistance, urban biodiversity, observation and regeneration in the city center. Together we will observe and analyze the different components of this rich and complex ecosystem, such as the functions of the soil, the practices of preservation (extinction, regeneration) of soil, water and biodiversity.  We will nourish reflections around the potentials of urban agroecologies, non-gardening practices, and their links with spaces and the common.

Kenza Benabderrazik is an agroecologist exploring the complex interplays between socio-ecological dynamics within food systems. In her teaching and research, she employs decolonial and feminist approaches to explore political ecologies and alternative governance structures. She currently teaches in the Sustainable Agroecosystems Group at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich and coordinates projects for scientific outreach related to food security, agroecology, and food system transformations. She is involved in creating spaces and fostering dialogues between scientists, artists, and various actors involved in food system transformation.

“Walk and weaving grasses x butter and beeswax coating”
by Suzanne Bernhardt and Philipp Kolmann

This two-parts workshop invites participants to think about the landscape and (its) taste. It combines walking in nature and discussing about the cycles of food production and consumption with a rye-weaving workshop (by Bernhardt) and a butter-making workshop (by Kolmann).

Philipp Kolmann and Suzanne Bernhardt unfold narratives of smell and taste surrounding the culture of sweetgrasses. At the heart their research lays the sweetgrass family and the various communities that all around the globe base their sustainability and growth on grains. Having both a background of working in kitchens and serving food, Kolmann and Bernhardt carry out their projects with a hands-on approach, aiming to deconstruct the hierarchy between cook and consumer; between server and served. By making processes transparent and inviting others to take an active role, they strive to collect sensorial data to rebuild an embodied practice based on ancestral knowledge, daily memories and learning to trust our senses.

Suzanne Bernhardt is a Dutch visual artist and Philipp Kolmann is an Austrian designer. They are based in the Netherlands.

“Names for Thinking the Earth: A Brief Anti-Colonial History of Plants’ Journeys through Food” – Artistic Lunch by Jonas Van

Jonas Van (*1989, Ceará, Brazil) is a transnordestino artist, researcher and cook. His practice is situated between transmutations, gender disobedience, language, speculative fiction and spirituality, using sound and video, ephemeral installations and poetry. His work proposes intimate fictional and theoretical narratives, linguistic and temporal fractures from an anti-colonial perspective.