ARCHIVE
ABOUT
Food 01
A near future, dystopian or hopeful depending on how you see it, where the food industry has collapsed. A time that forces us to relearn ancestral knowledge and reconnect with nature. This project reflects on the abundance that surrounds us: food is everywhere, yet we have grown used to eating only what is handed to us, loosing touch with the essence of real, healthy. Nature offers flavors and resources we’ve long ignored, by returning to them, we may find a more deeper and sustainable way of eating.
AFTER TASTING
RAGING ANBRAIDING SWEETGRASS FROM ROBIN WALL KIMMERER
This project aims to understand and respect nature through the practice of foraging. It is based on The honorable harvest an ancient set of rules on how to harvest while respecting nature. This set of rules came from the indigenous legacies, which remind us how to take, use, and share the gifts of nature. The gifts of nature mean the harvesting that came from mother earth.
To understand it better, we need to comprehend this unwritten protocol which should apply to every exchange between people and nature. Like Robin Wall Kimmerer states in Braiding Sweetgrass, “Unlike the state laws, the Honorable Harvest is not an enforced legal policy, but it is an agreement nonetheless, among people and most especially between consumers and providers.“ :
If we really think about this set of “rules”, a question arises; How much of what we consume do we really need? We are now in an era of capitalism and consumerism, with big chains of supermarkets everywhere around us overflowing with unhealthy and unmindfully produced food. We became so used to wanting something, wanting it now, and having it instantly. Take Uber Eats for example you order your buy one get one free (which you didn’t even need at first) and receive your food in 15 minutes.
To understand it better, we need to comprehend this unwritten protocol which should apply to every exchange between people and nature. Like Robin Wall Kimmerer states in Braiding Sweetgrass, “Unlike the state laws, the Honorable Harvest is not an enforced legal policy, but it is an agreement nonetheless, among people and most especially between consumers and providers.“ :
- One, “know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them.”
- Two, “Introduce yourself. Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life. Ask permission before taking. Abide
- by the answer.”
- Three, ”Never take the first. Never take the last. Take only what you need. Take only that which is given.”
- Four, “Never take more than half. Leave some for others. Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.”
- Five, “Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken. Share. Give thanks for what you have been given.”
- Six, “Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken.”
- Seven, “Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever. “
If we really think about this set of “rules”, a question arises; How much of what we consume do we really need? We are now in an era of capitalism and consumerism, with big chains of supermarkets everywhere around us overflowing with unhealthy and unmindfully produced food. We became so used to wanting something, wanting it now, and having it instantly. Take Uber Eats for example you order your buy one get one free (which you didn’t even need at first) and receive your food in 15 minutes.
You should also take The honorable harvest in other fields or aspects of life like the design world. It would make designers rethink how to create in a more mindful way. For example, they would question what materials to use, and how much to take, but not only; it would also make them rethink what they design and if it is really needed. Besides it could change the way buyers of the designers would consume as Ruben Pater states in Caps Lock, “Without consumer demand, goods would remain unsold.” Going back to the story of the teacher Nanabozho who was introduced to capitalistic design while fishing in the lake for supper and who lost all his fish because of greediness and technology, “I hear the mandate to take only what you need. But we human people, descendants of Nanabozho, struggle, as he did, with self-restraint.“ This almost became a danger to the Native cultures but fortunately became a cautionary story for the Native cultures.
In this workshop and afterward, I hope, I want you to be conscious of the Honorable Harvest and the consumerism way of thinking and remember these three quotes:
1. “They give to me, I give to them. Reciprocity is an investment in abundance for both the eater and the eaten.“
2. “If the earth is nothing more than inanimate matter, if lives are nothing more than commodities, then the way of the Honorable Harvest, too, is dead. But when you stand in the stirring spring woods, you know otherwise.“
3. “The culture of consumption has almost obliterated other societal forms, for example, those based on trust, reciprocity, and solidarity.”
PROCESS
Food 02
Questions the evolutioning of food looking at its identity and culture being affected by 3 factors: Globalisation, Climate change, or Political conflicts. In this project I imagine 4 possibilities.
- The influence of Chinese food in relation to Spanish culture due to Globalization and Political aspects.
- Venezuelan traditional dish having a French influence due to Globalisation.
- The loss of corn tortillas in Mexico due to Climate change.
- The British national dish loosing its international flavours due to Political aspects.
- Globalisation, the speed of our current and future generation. The connection of its evolving identity as now, many children come from parents of different countries, have moved during their childhood, or have traveled and have been shaped through a multicultural lens.
- Climate change, one of the many things that it will change in our lives is food. Our common food will start changing or disappearing.
- Political conflicts, with laws, wars, or dictators enforced people are pushed to leave their countries making their food culture change, or certain foods stop their production or commercialisation creating a product scarcity as some examples.
…I speculate future recipes.