Foodscapes

Foodscapes is a co-designed, collaborative action research project seeking to support and investigate the use of arts and performance in local food initiatives (LFS) to advance socially cohesive, healthy and vibrant sustainable communities. The work brings together two LFS projects in Bristol - the Edible Landscapes Movement (ELM) and the Matthew Tree Enterprise (TMTE). Through a series of co-produced arts and cultural interventions focused on producing, buying, cooking and eating food, our project seeks to enable dialogue and strengthen connections between concepts such as sustainability, resilience and wellbeing and people's daily lives and experiences.

Food is a critical resource commonly understood by myriad connections related to social and environmental systems. Climate change and increasing weather volatility, failed harvests, concerns around peak oil and the use of crops and farmland for biofuels are among a range of challenges contributing to disruptions in food supplies and dramatic swings in commodity prices. These trends not only demonstrate the inter-connected nature of food and climate change strategies, but also present a new set of challenges for global food security. For example, while current UK policy seeks to address food security primarily through supply-side strategies (e.g., increase production), a recent report by the Food Climate Research Network argued that healthier diets would go further than purely production initiatives towards addressing both environmental and hunger issues.
As such, research is needed to explore whether and how alternatives to traditional production models might engender changes in consumption practices and enable sustainable futures. Towards this objective, Foodscapes brings together academics, artists, community partners and community members from two disadvantaged areas of Bristol to consider new solutions to food security and sustainable communities. We believe that by focusing on consumption and by introducing enjoyment, fun, creativity and performance into LFS programmes we can bring about significant gains in health and wellbeing amongst participant communities, forge new pathways for civic dialogue, and challenge assumptions around sustainable practices.

Our action research model will encourage participants to reflect on the production and consumption of the food they are growing (and eating) by affording meaningful opportunities to co-design and 'co-research' the Foodscapes initiative. This process of arts production - working alongside researchers and artists - will enable dialogue, interaction and social transformation by examining and revealing participant experiences in the project. In this way, we seek to draw out the value and meaning associated with concepts of sustainability, resilience and wellbeing within a context of precariousness and uncertainty.

Our team is made up of academics from civic engagement and planning (Buser), cultural geography (Roe), sociology (Dinnie), and the arts (Hall). We have developed this proposal collaboratively with two community partners - Knowle West Media Centre and The Matthew Tree Project. Both partners are engaged in local food initiatives targeting disadvantaged communities in Bristol (ELM and TMTE respectively) and both are looking to draw out the potential for more sustainable communities through minute transformations in the mundane practices of shopping, cooking and eating.

This proposal has been developed in concert with community partners and seeks to generate new knowledge within the realms of LFS and collaborative arts. We imagine that the work will benefit to a wide-range of end users and stakeholders. The primary non-academic beneficiaries include community groups and civil society organisations, the participants engaged in the ELM and TMPT local food initiatives, and public sector groups including politicians and policy makers. We also see this project as a framework for incorporating collaborative arts engagements directly into narratives of sustainability and innovative ways of responding to the challenges of climate change.

Civil society and Community partners: the project involves two community partners: Knowle West Media Centre (KWMC) a community-based media and arts organisation that coordinates the Edible Landscapes Movement (ELM) and The Matthew Tree Project (TMTP) a food bank charity that offers free food aid and support for individuals and families in emergency need. Through participation in this project, these organisations will be able to widen their work with constituent communities (both include significant populations of economically disadvantaged and socially excluded individuals) and improve the potential for success of their local food initiatives. We have already made an impact by bringing these two groups together (they are now sharing information and knowledge). There will also be interest and relevance to national groups engaged in local food issues (e.g., Making Local Food Work, the Soil Association), landscape (e.g., CPRE), as well as those seeking to study and address issues of social exclusion (e.g., TSRC) and support the third sector (e.g, Assoc. of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations).

Project participants: We expect that the Foodscapes project will lead to direct benefits of health and wellbeing for those community members participating in the initiative. The groups and individuals we are seeking to engage are located in two of the most economically disadvantaged areas of Bristol. Knolwe West, in South Bristol has a population of around 15,000 and while there is a strong sense of community, the area has high levels of deprivation, with some parts of it being in the poorest 1% nationally (Knowle West Regeneration Strategy 2010). The Matthew Tree Project is located in St. Jude's, a housing estate area just off the city centre shopping district. Matthew Tree provides healthy food and diet to local residents and individuals across the city suffering from food insecurity. Many of the organisation's clients do not regularly eat three meals a day and are typically not eating healthy diets. Beyond improvements in health and physical wellbeing, our work will support opportunities to participate in a community project, to develop new skills related to growing and cooking food, as well as modes of expression through the arts. Moreover, through sharing between the ELM and TMTP projects, participants will benefit from a range of tacit knowledge about landscape, agriculture, and cooking already in existence in their communities and made available through the collaborative work.

For the public sector, the project will inform policy-makers and politicians of the value of alternative food systems and the role of arts and performance in translating these policies into daily practice. This work will be of interest to politicians in Bristol as well as national policy makers and civil servants (e.g., DEFRA) where food security issues are being discussed. We expect that Foodscapes will be of interest to these groups and inform policy-making around the role of LFS, ways of shifting relations with food and diet, the role and potential of arts to support localised community engagement on issues of global significance, and about exploring sustainable lifestyles through engagement with economically disadvantaged and socially-excluded individual