ABSTRACT

This book explores the impact of artistic experiments in inspiring people to turn away from current food consumerism and take an active role in preserving, sustaining, and protecting the environment.

As artists are expanding their practice into social justice and community concerns, erasing traditional forms of expression and integrating others, the culture around food and its production has been added to a new vocabulary of experiential art. The authors measure the impact of such experiments on local food consumption and production, focusing on education and youth, both in the surrounding community and culture at large. They suggest how these projects can be up-scaled to further encourage sustainable solutions for our environment and communities. The book explores the reflections and motivations of case study practitioners in urban and rural areas and, through interviews, engages with artists who are pioneering a new trend to create hubs of activity away from traditional art spaces in cities to follow a non-hierarchal practice that is de-centralized and communally based.

This book will be of great interest to academic readers concerned with issues related to environmental aesthetics, eco-design, eco-criticism, culture, heritage, memory, and identity, and those interested in the current debates on the place of aesthetics and culture in sustainability.

chapter |12 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|14 pages

Agriculture in Times of Ecology

A Brief History

chapter 3|18 pages

Anarchy in the Kitchen

chapter 4|16 pages

Art and Research in Food-Based Situations

chapter 5|17 pages

Art-Science Residencies as Experiments

chapter 7|18 pages

Bread, Grains, and Ancient Cosmologies

chapter 8|27 pages

In-Between Places

chapter 9|20 pages

Nomads, Shepherding, and Territory

chapter 10|17 pages

Poisons

chapter 12|6 pages

The Food of Life