Food - a language we all speak? by Fan Sissoko

FOOD:

A LANGUAGE WE ALL SPEAK? How can â&#x20AC;&#x153;sustainability-mindedâ&#x20AC;? community projects better engage diverse audiences? Fan Sissoko MA Design for Development Kingston University September 2011

SUMMARY Taking place in Brixton, South London, this project is an exploration of how local food systems can be used to engage culturally and socially diverse communities around sustainability issues. This report is a detailed account of initial research undertaken between July and September 2011. This first stage aimed at uncovering opportunities for inclusive and convivial cooking initiatives, which would: • address the environmental impact of food; • celebrate Brixton’s cultural diversity; • take a resourceful approach by joining up local community groups, local urban growing projects, food surplus from local businesses, and local cookery talents.

< What does Brixton taste like? Engagement activity at Brixton Splash Festival. 7/08/2011. Photo: Paula Ligo.

It has been conducted as an open-ended and entrepreneurial investigation into local food systems and social networks. It has also been informed by existing initiatives that have positively approached similar issues.

MENU MEET THE GUESTS

Introduction

AMUSES-BOUCHES:

MAINS: DESSERT: DIGESTIF: 7. APPENDICES:

Acknowledgements

TAKE A SEAT:

STARTERS:

Discovering the context

Instigating

Designing a ‘social happening’

Plans for the future

Personal Reflection

MEET THE GUESTS I would like to thank the following people, for having been generously helpful, supportive, inspiring and inspired.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think Brixton has a more active community than in a lot of places, a more active network of people actively trying to shape and change their surroundings, collaborate with each other.â&#x20AC;?

TAKE A SEAT While you are waiting, we invite you to understand the motivations behind this project and what it is hoping to achieve. We also offer a light theoretical introduction to the various principles that have informed this research.

WHAT FOR? 1. OVERALL AIM The aim of this project is to explore how food can be used as a shared language to engage culturally and socially diverse communities around sustainable issues, with the purpose of:

1. Inclusive: invite broad community participation and ownership.

• ensuring broad ownership of environmental action • contributing to social cohesion • inspiring positive lifestyle changes towards climate change resilience Taking place in the ethnically, culturally and socially diverse area of Brixton, in South London, it more specifically intends to uncover opportunities for communal cooking initiatives that are:

2. Convivial: celebrate Brixton’s cultural diversity and facilitate sharing between participants.

3. Resourceful: join up existing community groups, food surplus from local businesses, local urban growing projects, and local cookery talents. 9

2. INITIAL RESEARCH OBJECTIVES This report is a detailed account of an open-ended investigation into local food systems and social networks, undertaken between July and September 2011. It has also been informed by existing initiatives that have positively approached similar issues.

Objectives for this first stage were to:

Map relevant local community networks, and sustainable food initiatives.

>> to highlight potential resources. >> to discover innovation opportunities.

Establish meaningful relationships with active members of the community, who have focused their work on local food, sustainability or social cohesion in Brixton.

>> to understand the current dynamic of local environmental and social action. >> to build local momentum around the topic. >> to find potential collaborators. >> to get validation, support and inspiration.

Produce a project proposal, informed by the research, and using a visual or live prototyping approach.

>> to test different solutions >> to communicate about the project with community organisers and potential funders.

1.3 LONG-TERM PROJECT OBJECTIVES What would make it successful?

What would it look like?

Sense of ownership from local residents: they are not only invited to take part, but also to share their own talent, story, knowledge, good mood, etc, to make the project their own.

>> smiles are seen on peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s faces >> new encounters are made >> participants are from diverse backgrounds >> they feel they have learned something >> they feel they have taught something >> they are keen to see it happen regularly

Buy-in from active members of the community who have the capacity to organise resources, are strongly connected, can give advice and share experience.

>> validation >> support >> collaboration

Capacity to make it happen: the necessary resources, including funding, have been gathered.

>> organisers have time to dedicate to it >> space and equipment is available >> market traders approve to supply waste food

WHY? 1. SUSTAINABILITY, DIVERSITY AND ENGAGEMENT This project is motivated by a long-term interest in cultural diversity and social inclusion, combined with an observation formulated while working on community engagement activities for sustainabilityminded projects (See Appendix 1 & 2). These seemed to only engage a limited sector of the population: “those who have reached a level of sufficient wealth and education to feel comfortable in letting go of some of it, who are often, but not always, white and middle-class.” (Hopkins 2010) However, to effect significant change, a vision for sustainable development must encompass the values and interests of everyone. It must be “based on broad community ownership” (Newman & Jennings 2008), which, as implied by Localising Agenda 21, will most effectively be achieved through a bottom-up, participatory and inclusive process (Barton 2000). The 1992 Rio Declaration on the Environment and Development defines public participation as a key principle to environmental policy initiatives: “Environmental issues are best handled with the participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level.” This does not only implies that citizens should be given the opportunity to participate in decision making, but also that relevant information concerning the environment must be made available to them. Taking this principle a step further would suggests that this information must also be conveyed in a way that is clear, accessible and enlightening, as well as engaging. It must encourage participation, and political

The Urban Physic Garden according to local residents. On behalf of social change agency Uscreates, students from the MA Design for Development, including myself, conducted a mini creative consultation with local residents on a pop-up garden space in Bankside. The aim was to find out how to increase their use of the space, by discovering what they wished to see in it and what they could offer. We initially encountered quite a lot of misunderstanding regarding the intention of the project to be an open community space. The main factor seemed to be an inconsideration for the often simple needs of people, which we assumed resulting from insufficient preliminary involvement. (See Appendix 1 for more details.) 07/2011. Photos: Paula Ligo and personal files.

involvement from all strands of the population. With this in mind, the sustainability challenge appears to be a communication and social cohesion challenge too. This also applies at a grassroots level, for community-led initiatives. Transition Towns hero Robert Hopkins (2010) suggests that environmental groups must challenge their perception “that some sectors of society are ‘hard to reach’” and start considering “the possibility that it is actually we who are ‘hard to reach’, that for many people, due to how we work, communicate and position ourselves, we can be seen as remote, distant and irrelevant.” This project is therefore framed by the need to find a language that includes diverse aspirations, and engages diverse communities around the sustainability narrative.

“Any movement towards unified action [lacking] the diverse tapestry of cultures and ethnicities of a local community, [is] lacking some shades to its rainbow.” (Pickering 2011)

2. INCLUSIVE? “If we are serious about creating a truly resilient movement, we need to include the voices, experiences and strengths of everyone in our communities.” (Pickering 2011). The expectation that inclusiveness must become an underlying principle of environmental action raises interesting questions, particularly at the level of community-led initiatives.

Firstly, how do we define inclusiveness? If a group has formed from concerned people spontaneously coming together to make their local area more resilient, how can it assess its own inclusiveness? Is it because its members are representative of the local population? Is it because it brings together people from various social backgrounds? Is it because people of all ages have a role to play? Is it because it is ethnically diverse? And what about less visible expressions of diversity, like a wide range of skills, of knowledge, of wisdom, of opinions? These suggestions already imply a tension between representative - the group embodies the demographics and social dynamics of the area - and diverse - the group is eclectic. The issue of cohesion also needs to be considered here. If different groups, each representative of a distinct community, lead their own environmental projects, does it make their action less effective than if they were working together and exchanging views and resources? Do we want diverse groups, or do we want a diversity of groups? All these questions might seem a bit pedantic, and we can wonder whether they are even relevant to community-led initiatives, which are organically shaped by the energy of their 14

organisers, leaders, volunteers, and participants. “People get involved at a certain stage because the case that is being presented for Transition, or the discourse around it appeals to them. I suppose that the definition of what Transition is co-evolves with who the audience is.” (See Appendix 3). Maybe then the inclusiveness of a community project can be deemed on its openness, that is its readiness to be nurtured by local energy; or in fact, by the energy of other locals. By other local skills, other local knowledge and other local voices. This is quite an interesting twist, if we consider that the Latin etymology of ‘to include’ (in: “in” + claudere: “to shut”) relates to “to shut in, enclose, imprison.” So inclusiveness is not a straightforward concept, and might, in practice, look very different from one context to another.

So let’s look at the context. This project is taking place in the UK, in the socially, ethnically, and culturally very diverse urban area of Brixton. Brixton has been, at times, pictured as both the perfect example of a thriving multicultural Britain, and as the symbol of its failure. In fact, there has been a lot of debate around the notion of multiculturalism itself, about its benefits and inconvenients, and even about what it actually means. It can be understood as the coexistence on a defined territory of different cultural communities, “that live their own ways of life in a self-contained manner” (Parekh 2004). However, in a place like London, and at a time when our notions of community are becoming “increasingly mobile, private, and voluntary” (Hemming 2011) this definition seems unfit for purpose. Firstly, the idea of neighbourhood as a place where community happens can no longer

Phone for Crabian? Brixton Village. Photo: personal files.

be taken for granted. Secondly, interactions between individuals from different cultural backgrounds seem unavoidable. Therefore, completely self-contained communities are hard to imagine. It might be more helpful to understand multiculturalism as the recognition that “no culture is perfect or represents the best life and that it can therefore benefit from a critical dialogue with other cultures” (Parekh 2004). In this sense multiculturalism is more than the tolerant coexistence of diverse communities of culture. It “requires that all cultures should be open, self-critical, and interactive in their relations with other each other” (Parekh 2004). This can take different forms, from “merely sampling different cultures, such as a carnival” to actively “challenging structural inequalities” (Chouhan 2004). But the important point is the imperative of exchange: cultures evolve. They borrow from each other, they react against each other, and, as a result, constantlly reinvent themselves. This is particularly interesting in the context of Brixton, where so many heritages have been successively imported, from the UK, Europe, the Carribean, Africa, South America and Asia. Are they strongly affirming their distinct identity? Are they enriching each other? Are they blending with each other to make up a

Brixton-wide culture? Part of this research was an attempt to investigate the dynamics of a Brixton seasoned multiculturalism, led by the question:

Where are the touchpoints? Approaching multiculturalism in terms of ‘dynamics’ and ‘touchpoints’ implies two things. Firstly, communities are understood as loose and evolving “social networks based on chosen connections” (Gilchrist 2000) rather than homogenous groups with a fixed identity. Secondly, and subsequently, there is a recognition that we are dealing with individuals before dealing with groups. People might share a common cultural heritage, a religion, an interest, or some social characteristics, that affect their sense of belonging, but everyone has their own unique story. With this view, inclusiveness might actually simply be about letting people know that they each have something unique to offer. It might be about valuing their uniqueness, which incorporates, but cannot be restricted to, their cultural heritage. It might be about initiating a genuine dialogue rather than trying to replicate a language that is assumed to be theirs. Now, what does it look like in practice?

3. LANGUAGE?

Fenced. The picture above is the outside of the Urban Physic Garden. The space has been beautifully designed and includes an intriguing display of medicinal plants, a tasty café and some unusual see-saws. These all make up a well crafted language. But for many local residents, this fence is their first and only contact with the project. Some of the people we have interviewed reported feeling intimidated by the sophistication of the display, and the lack of a welcoming face. This is also part of the project’s language. (See Appendix 1 for more details.) 07/2011. Photos: personal files.

Open. The picture on the right was taken during an Invisible Food foraging workshop, organised monthly by Ceri Buck around Brixton. The loose outdoor setting allows for spontaneous and playful interaction. (See page 41 for more details.) 08/2011. Photos: personal files.

“We need to find a way to make it immediate for them, to relate it to what they care about.” Camden Environmental Education Network (2007)

Do we just mean verbal communication? In the context of this project, language is used in a very broad sense. It can be defined as all the actions through which an organisation or a project communicate their values and positions themselves within the community. This language is obviously detectable on promotional materials, such as posters, flyers, website, etc. These confer a verbal and visual identity to the project, which may or may not resonate with the intended participants. But visiting or taking part in community projects led to the realisation that this language is also made up of a multitude intangible factors. All the interactions participants have with the project influence their level of engagement: where it takes place, who else is involved, what conversations happen, how challenging the activities are, how sophisticated the set up is, whether there is room for their own contribution, etc. Every single touchpoint has the potential to trigger people’s imagination, or to turn it off.

What is an engaging language? Breaking down what we mean by engaging people is useful at this stage. Two dimensions of engagement have been identified that are relevant to this project. Firstly, it can relate to the way information is communicated. Sustainability, as an emerging view of the world, combines an awful lot of unfamiliar, and “sometimes competing” values (Chick & Micklethwaite 2011). Adjusting the way we think about the world can be very demanding, especially through abstract concepts. To engage with new knowledge, we need to relate it to something we are familiar with. We need metaphors, images... “Resilient – it means that you’re strong and flexible doesn’t it – as a community, it means you’ve the strength to sustain yourself as a community and a bit of flexibility, a bit of muscle…” (Wilding 2011) ... tangible representations, and experiences: “I am told and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” (Chinese Proverb) Secondly, engagement refers to encouraging people to take action. “Building change on any scale requires broad support and buy in” which implies to “actively increase participation by motivating individuals and communities to get involved” (UsCreates 2011). The current Localism Agenda has brought a lot of debate around the notion of community engagement and empowerment , why it is needed and how to achieve it. But there seems to be little discussion around what it actually looks like for individuals.

What happens when we are engaged? The diagram below is an attempt to establish a non-exhaustive list of the various feelings, behaviours or intellectual attitudes we are trying to trigger when we aim at engaging people. It is based on observation and informal interviews conducted while taking part in community projects as much as on personal experience.

COGNITIVE Understanding: I get it Questionning: I challenge it Curiosity: I want to know more

EMOTIONAL: Belonging: I feel comfortable Connectedness: I share, I care Concern: I am compelled to act Responsibility: I feel I have a role to play

BEHAVIOURAL Presence: I am present Ownership: I take action Leadership: I encourage others Experimentation: I try new things

WHY FOOD? 1. FOOD AS A LANGUAGE The underlying assumption of this project is that food is a language, and that this language has the potential to engage everyone. Everyone eats. And through what we eat, we send messages about our personal values. “Food and eating habits and preferences are not simply matters of fuelling ourselves, alleviating hunger pans, or taking enjoyment in gustatory sensations. Food and eating are central to our subjectivity, our sense of self.” (Lupton 1996). Food can prompt multisensory memories, which contribute to our sense of identity. It can play an important role in the way we relate to people. It can be a pretext to get families together, to establish new connections, to maintain relationships. Food is also a huge cultural asset: we often access distant cultures through their cooking traditions, we learn foreign languages by

learning the names of typical dishes. Food has a sociocultural meaning. It serves “to mark boundaries between social classes, geographic regions, nations, cultures, genders, life-cycle stages, religions and occupations, to distinguish rituals, traditions, festivals, seasons and times of the day.” (Lupton 1996). How come eating, which is such a basic need, is so highly codified and conveys so many messages? “Ever since man has ceased living off wild berries, this need has been highly structured. Substances, techniques of preparation, habits,

Pictures: Madeleines, 3D Plant Groundation, The People’s Supermarket, Street Feast Ireland.

all become part of a system of differences in signification; and as soon as this happens, we have communication by way of food.” (Barthes 2008)

MEMORIES

For French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, food is characteristic of our ambivalent relationship to nature in the same way than language. “Cooking is a moral process, transferring raw matter from ‘nature’ to the state of ‘culture’ ... Food is therefore civilized by cooking, not simply at the level of practice, but at the level of the imagination.” (Lupton 1996).

HEALTH

For all these reasons, food can be a trigger for storytelling and conversation. It can be a touchpoint between diverse communities. But although food is a language everyone speaks, it does not mean it is an inclusive language. Difference in diets, for health reasons, religious beliefs, or ethical choices, can divide people as much as it can connect them. With food, inclusiveness is not a given. But involving food can be a powerful way of inviting people to share their cultural heritage, their story, or their knowledge. It is likely to be engaging because it is tangible, on a multisensory level: taste, sight, smell, and touch are stimulated. Finally, it is an essential ingredient for conviviality: it can easily be turned into a celebration, that invites slowing down and sharing.

VALUES

RELATIONSHIPS

This project aims at demonstrating how food can be used as a shared language to engage diverse communities around the sustainability narrative.

2. THE FOOD PROBLEM The other reason for focusing on food, is that the environmental impact of our globalized and highly industrialised food system must be addressed.

Food miles In a world of “mobilisation” (Girardet 2008) driven by transport technology, cities are easily connected to natural resources on a global level. The ecological footprint of London, defined as the area required to supply it with natural resources and absorb its waste, is of nearly 300 times its actual surface (Girardet 2008). This becomes particularly evident with food. “London pioneered the long-distance import of food, spices, tea, coffee and timber. It ‘grew’ a global hinterland.” (Girardet, 2008). And this global supply system has deep environmental implications, such as dependency on fossil fuels for global transportation and biodiversity loss resulting from monoculture and landscape alteration. “Around four barrels of the stuff go into feeding each of us in Britain every year ... We are effectively eating oil.” (Steel 2008).

Food waste Food waste is a major economic, environmental and social issue. Its amplitude is best communicated through a few statistics. “As much as 30-50% of all food grown worldwide may be lost or wasted before and after it reaches the consumer.” (Forum for the Future 2011). “An estimated 20 to 40% of UK fruit and vegetables rejected even before they reach the shops - mostly because they do not match the supermarkets’ excessively strict cosmetic standards.” “10% of rich countries’ greenhouse gas emissions come from growing food that is never eaten.” “All the world’s nearly one billion hungry people could be lifted out of malnourishment on less than a quarter of the food that is wasted in the US, UK and Europe.” “4 million people in the UK, 43 million in the EU and around 35 million in the US suffer from food poverty.” (Stuart 2009).

Solution? Food miles and waste are just two of the adverse effects of our food system. There are also major issue related to social inequality, health, and economic unsustainability.

Potatoes rejected for cosmetic reasons, at a potato farm that supplies Tesco’s. Kent, England, 2008. Photo: Tristam Stuart (2009)

When we consider the extent of the problem and the interconnectedness of the system, the amount of work that will need to be done to bring back some sanity onto our plates seems gargantuan. “The British government recently announced plans for the construction of 10 new ‘eco-towns’ with the intention that they be ‘zerocarbon’, although quite how that is going to be achieved if the towns are plugged into the same food supply networks as the rest of us is anyone’s guess” (Steel 2008).

3. LOCAL FOOD Forum for the Future (2011) has very helpfully identified three priorities: 1. Rebalance economic equity in food chain, by establishing long-term, meaningful and rewarding relationships with producers. 2. Reconnect people with the food they eat, by allowing them to appreciate the many stories behind a meal, from social capital and animal welfare to nutritional value. 3. Restore resilience to the food system by making more effective use of resources and eliminating unnecessary waste. One more re- word could be added: reevaluate. We need to turn problems upside down and search for opportunities in the existing system. We need to positively challenge the idea of waste and celebrate, not moralise.

“Pour les gens, c’est un tas de saloperies. Pour moi, c’est un tas de possibles.”* Gleaner, interviewed by Agnes Varda in “The Gleaners and I” (2009)

* “For people, it’s a pile of junk. For me, it’s a pile of possibilities.”

“If we were to take a page from nature’s book, we would try to adapt our appetites to where we live, getting our resources from as close by as possible” (Benyus 1997).

CONVIVIALITY IDENTITY HEALTH

LOCAL UPSKILLING LOCAL ECONOMY

WASTE PREVENTION LOCAL GROWING

The three aims described by Forum for the Future could be partly be addressed by relocalising our food system, that is “shifting the focus of economic activity to local markets [and] local production” (Hopkins 2010). For instance, cutting middle men, and sourcing produce closer to home can support the local economy and foster a sense of place, by encouraging entrepreneurship from local producers and food businesses. Supporting local food growing, particularly in urban areas, can create new jobs, as well as a demand for new skills. In disadvantaged areas, it can be a way to facilitate access to fresh produce. It can help to reduce food miles, and to value biological diversity at the global level. Finally, a localised food system can strengthen local relationships, by putting forward the human stories behind products.

HOW? I. PROBLEMS OR ASSETS?

2. SCOPING PROCESS

As mentioned earlier, this first phase has been focused understanding the context and uncovering potentialities. Therefore it focused on exploring opportunities as much as, if not more than, on framing problems.

If it was to be placed on a wider timeline, the first phase of this project would corresponds to the “Hear” phase of the Hear Create Deliver process map developed by Ideo (2009).

The main reasons for taking “assets based approaches, rather than needs based ones” (Britton 2011) is that the notion of resourcefulness is at the heart of the project. The discovery process is in some way comparable to foraging: looking for what our direct environment has to offer. Talking in terms of needs would suggest a lack of resources, while one of the intentions of this project is to highlight that solutions are often already available within the community, and that organising self-reliance at the local level very much depends on shifting our focus from pursuing what we don’t have to being innovative with what we have.

DISCOVER

It involved both qualitative desk and field research. It was mostly about immersing myself into the context, and understanding the dynamics of existing social networks.

Process Map and project phases. Adapted form Ideo’s Hear Create Deliver process map. What is on grey background has not been achieved yet.

DELIVER

ABSTRACT

CREATE Exploring opportunities

Mapping resources

Proposals

CONCRETE

Building a picture Getting inspired Discovering the context

Prototypes Making local connections Implementation Plans

AMUSES-BOUCHE p24

STARTERS p34

MAIN p40

DESSERT p48

3. TOOLBOX The methodology can be described in very simple and non-designerly terms: I walked, looked, listened, took photographs, drew maps, drew systems, drew people, emailed people, phoned people, met people, listened more, took notes, wrote blog posts, asked questions, volunteered, talked and listened some more. I ate too.

Methods. The diagram below describes the activities undertaken to gather information, uncover opportunities and get ideas. To indicate at what stage of the process these activities were used, a toolbox will be used on the following pages.

>> scan the horizon >> understand the context >> empathise with local issues

>> GET IDEAS

>> feel inspired >> reflect quietly: theorise

>> receive feedback

>> reflect actively: test and brainstorm

>> develop a supportive network

>> GET CRITICAL

>> GET EMPOWERED

AMUSES-BOÛCHES What follows is aimed at accustoming your palate with the general flavour of the project. These amuse-boûches should set the scene, and give a general picture of the context in which the project is taking place.

MAPPING LOCAL RESILIENCE

1. COMMUNITY “In the 11th century Brixton was known as Brixistane, which means ‘the stone of Brihtsige’. These stones were used as a meeting point for communities.” (YoungLambeth 2011). The aim of this investigation was not to provide an exhaustive overview of community initiatives, but to understand local networks. It focused on the relational dynamics between people, places and community groups. However, to achieve this, trying to map, even roughly, where community happens was necessary. The map below an abundance of community groups and facilities, education and support facilities, youth projects, faith projects, entrepreneurial community-led activities, as well as informal spaces.

Lambeth Somali Community Association

Myatt’s Fields Community Centre

North Brixton Islamic Centre Ground up

Eritrean Saho Cultural Association Brixton Drug Project

Marcus Lipton Youth Centre

People First Lambeth

Victory Youth Group (VYG) Stockwell Children Centre Skatepark Brixton Women Institute Lambeth Women Project Lambeth Islamic Cultural Centre

Post Office

Lambeth Masjid and Progressive Community Centre

Brixton Children Centre Loughborough Estate Community Centre Brixton Mosque and Islamic Centre

Loughborough Junction Action Group

Brixton Recreation Centre Make it Grow it Sell it Friends of Brixton Market Brixton Market

Muslim Sisters Jamaat Mother and Toddler

Brixton Pound Brixton Village

Public space in front of Coldharbour Lane Estate

Ritzy Cinema Lambeth Town Hall New Initiatives Youth & Community Association Somali Education Forum/Aayatiin Foundation

Library Brixton Community Base

Effra Children Centre

Alex Mulumba Foundation

Railton Methodist Youth & Community Centre

Brockwell Lido

* This quote is by Hannah Lewis, an active member of Transition Towns Brixton. See Appendix 5 for complete interview.

2. SUSTAINABILITY PROJECTS Brixton has a strong network of groups and projects aimed at increasing climate change resilience, and a particularly large number of community gardens. Transition Town Brixton plays an important role as an incubator for environmental action. Lambeth Council has also demonstrated support through its Green Community Champions programme and the Brixton Low Carbon Zone project.

Catalysts

Food growing

Reuse

Foraging

Energy

Local food outlets

Myatt’s Field Park Community Greenhouses Myatt’s Field Park Café

Brixton Reuse Centre Invisible Food

Angell Town Community Garden Brixton Cycles

The Edible Bus Stop

Loughborough Estate Community Garden

Farmers Market Cornercopia

Transition Town Brixton Traid

Ruskin Park Community Garden

DraftBusters Second Step: Food for our Brains

Brixton Low Carbon Zone

Loughborough Park Community Food Growing Project

Incredible Edible Lambeth The Abundance Project

Lambeth Green Community Champions

Oxfam

Herne Hill Climate Action Network Brockwell Bake

Brockwell Park Community Greenhouses Data has been gathered through Capital Growth (2011) and Project Dirt (2011).

3. FOOD SUPPLY The centre of Brixton is best described as a food hub. Its vibrant daily street market is borded by grocery stores that import both fresh and processed food from Carribean, African and Asian countries. Investigating resident’s shopping habits has revealed some interesting aspects of the dynamics of local social networks, which are explored more deeply in the next sections.

“They sell a variety of food there. Polish food, Indian food, Jamaican food. Its totally changed!.” Resident*

Supermarkets

Dining

Local food outlets

“My early memory of Brixton Market is feeling like I’m home.” Carribean Shopper*

“I love the reggae music, you know. when you are walking in Brixton, you can bounce about, and shop carefree, and just be happy.” Shopper*

“Supermarkets can’t compete with me.” Market Trader*

Farmers Market

Marks & Spencer Electric Avenue Street Market

Sainsbury Reliance Arcade McDonalds KFC

Aldi

Take-Away

“I can get all of my meat, vegetable and fish here cheaper than the supermarket. And there is much more of a social life.” Shopper*

“I hardly come down here, because I shop online now, so I go to Tescos or Sainsburys.” Resident*

“In twenty years time, I think the market will be gone. It will be history.” Market Trader*

Market

Brixton Village (Granville Arcade) Market Row

“We are getting more restaurants and coffee bars. And it seems to be aimed at the more high end of the market now, the people with more leisure time and more money to spend.” Market Trader*

“Some of our customers are still afraid of buying meat from the market. A lot of people want free range and organic meat.” Food Deli Owner**

* Quotes from “Stall Stories” (Stockwell Primary School 2011), a documentary about Brixton market realised by local children. ** This quote is by Anne Fairbrother, who runs Cornercopia in Brixton Village. See Appendix 6 for complete interview.

VISUALISING BRIXTON AS A FOOD HUB 1. WATCHING

2. VISUALISING

Exploring local food systems in Brixton always seems to lead back to the market. Therefore most attention was focused on it and on trying to understand it as a system, through experiencing it, observing it and having conversations about it. This investigation has been particularly enlightened by “Stall Stories”, a sort film produced by Stockwell Primary School (2011), documenting the history of the market through interviews with traders and shoppers. Two main themes came out of it:

Understand Brixton’s energy also required to look at the big picture. Socio-demographic statistics were gathered from Lambeth Council (2003) and represented visually. Different techniques, such as drawing and street photography, were tested to make sense of the raw date. However, because the link between the diversity of Brixton people and the diversity of Brixton food had been a reccurrent theme of the research, the decision to superpose both was taken. A trip to the market provided the graphic language, and also became an opportunity to start investigating how much the food has travelled.

• “Back home foods”: the market is a place that reflects the population of Brixton, both in terms of the diversity of food available, and due to it being a “like back home” experience. • “It’s totally changed”: Brixton market evolves at the same time as the local population. New communities bring new produce and new businesses. The latest major change has been the regeneration of Brixton Village by Space Makers, which allowed local residents to try out creative business ideas or community projects in the arcade’s empty units. As a result, a few gourmet eateries and fashion shops have opened, and changed its dynamics. From a place dedicated to daily “work” like grocery shopping, to a creative incubation laboratory, it is now becoming more and more leisure focused.

Multi-ethnic Beans were chosen to represent ethnicities, mostly because they are available in such a broad range of colours. Building the diagram, and the action of segregating the beans by colours raised a couple of questions! • Does it make sense to represent ethnic diversity, when diversity can express itself in less visible but more significant ways, such as social classes, cultures, ages, skills, opinions, interests, knowledge, languages, etc? • Which of the two plates is closest to reality?

Asian 2,046 Mixed 3,442

White 37,036

Black 20,674

Brixton by Ethnicity Provenance of the beans Rosecoco beans Provenance: Unknown Purchased: Electric Avenue Native of: Latin America Typically cooked in: Mexico, USA

Other 1,499

Red lentils Provenance: Unknown Purchased: Electric Avenue Native of: India Typically cooked in: South Asia

Yellow split peas Provenance: Unknown Purchased: Hinton Road Native of: Europe, India Typically cooked in: South Asia, Europe, Latin America

Black beans Provenance: Unknown Purchased: Electric Avenue Native of: Latin America Typically cooked in: South America, Carribean

White beans Provenance: Unknown Purchased: Hinton Road Native of: Europe Typically cooked in: Britain, Italy, USA

Eastern Europe 1.1% Africa 9.7%

Western Europe 5.6%

South America 7.6%

North America & Carribean 7.6%

British Isles 75.7%

Asia 2.7%

Brixton by Country of Origin Cassava flour Provenance: Unknown Purchased: Electric Avenue Native of: South America Typically cooked in: Africa, South America

Rye Provenance: UK Purchased: Brixton Wholefoods Native of: Turkey Typically cooked in: Northern and Eastern Europe

Quinoa Provenance: Unknown Purchased: Brixton Wholefoods Native of: Peru Typically cooked in: South America Corn Provenance: Unknown Purchased: Electric Avenue Native of: Mexico Typically cooked in: Latin America, Africa, North America, Europe Rice Provenance: China Purchased: Sainsburys Native of: China Typically cooked in: East and South Asia, Middle East, Latin America, Carribean, West Africa, Europe, North America

Provenance of the grains

Wheat Provenance: UK Purchased: Brixton Wholefoods Native of: Turkey Typically cooked in: Europe, North America, Middle-East, North Africa

Oats Provenance: UK Purchased: Brixton Wholefoods Native of: Near East Typically cooked in: Northwest Europe

Economically inactive 14,584

Unemployed 2,748

Economically active 35,094

Multi-local Building thesecond diagram from statistics about geographical origin seemed at first like a more accurate and meaningful way to represent cultural identities. However, it failed to give a sense of cultural heritage, which, for many people, and particularly in the case of â&#x20AC;&#x153;settled immigrantsâ&#x20AC;? is much more complex - and oxymoronic - than their place of birth.

Multi-social The third and last diagram looked at economic activity. Again, a flat statistical representation, despite being made of flavoursome mint and coriander leaves, gives little indication of the social dynamics behind the numbers, and does not conveye any sense of place.

Looking at more detailed data from Lambeth Council (2011), however, called attention to one area of Brixton, Coldharbour Ward, which includes Brixton Market and Loughborough Junction, the two places that motivated the project for personal reasons. Brixton may well be described as an up-and-coming town, but Coldharbour is still one the most deprived wards in the UK, as measured by the Census deprivation score (Lambeth Council 2011). It aslo has a low economic activity rate amongst 16-24 year olds, due to large numbers of fulltime students who do not work, and an above average percentage of the population with a long-term limiting illness. What does this imply in terms of peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s relationship to food? Do local food systems offer social innovation opportunities that would start to address those issues? 31

TASTING BRIXTON Having a better idea of the diversity of origins of Brixton people and Brixton food, it made sense to explore the relationship between both.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE FOOD? Brixton Splash, a one day festival intended “to showcase the vibrant face of Brixton and positively rebrand the area after the extensive negative publicity, [that followed] the 1981 disorders” (BrixtonSplash 2011) offered a perfect setting to conduct some engagement activities with a wide range of people. A couple of hours in the middle of the joyous crowd transformed into what could be described as a very delicious scoping exercise. Armed with 20 colour markers, 60 paper plates, a camera, 3 generous classmates and a smile, I proceeded to a very spontaneous - and therefore pretty loose - taste audit. I asked people to draw their favourite dish, and to talk to me about their shopping and cooking habits. Answers were very varied, and considering the relatively small number of respondants (35), they cannot be taken as an accurate representation of the whole area. However, a few patterns emerged. Mostly, children and young people favoured fast food, and reported shopping in supermarkets, while older people agreed that Brixton market offered better value and fresher produce. The appreciation of the diversity of the food available in Brixton was also a strong theme.

“I try to only feed myself from food that other people waste.”

WHAT WAS LEARNED? • Quick and cheap feels good. It takes the apprehension of talking to strangers away and keeps things simple. Methods of engagement do not need to be over designed. Most of it is down to friendliness. • A bit of planning would have been good too! Mostly to make sure the questions asked remained relevant to the research. • Asking people to draw works well, and not only with children. It gave time to ask questions and engage on a deeper level, while taking off a bit of the pressure to answer. • Festivals make it easier. They offer a relaxed and celebratory setting which makes the whole process feel less intrusive. “I live in Mitcham now, but I miss living in Brixton. I miss the McDonalds.”

SUMMARY The diagramm below show the issues ( ) and opportunities ( ) that have been identified at this stage of the project.

COMMUNITY COMMUNITIES The market, as a meeting place for people and culture, is an important social asset. However, it is becoming increasingly polarised between the most deprived and those who have more money and more leisure time, particularly in Brixton Village.

HOW LOCAL IS LOCAL? The range of exotic produce is a major contribution to Brixtonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sense of identity. In this respect, local food is as much about imported food than it is a bout locally grown food. food miles local growing projects supplying the market with exotic produce

can we ensure that it remains inclusive? encourage knowledge exchange between both social groups, through exotic food explorations and storytelling

GENERATIONS The loss of interest for the street market, as well as for cooking by the youngest residents came out of the Brixton Splash investigation. lack of skills, generational gap, unemployment facilitate skills exchange between youths and older people through cooking projects.

FREE FOOD? There is a wide range of community food growing initiatives in Brixton, and most of those seem to bring include some element of intercultural cooking. However, very little is done to deal with the waste generated by the numerous food businesses. can we close the loop of the existing system before spending energy creating alternative systems? use food waste from local businesses as primary resource for an intercultural cooking project

STARTERS This research has been inspired by a number of existing projects and nurtured by the energy of local people. This chapter goes into details about who and what instigated the project.

INSPIRATION DIPS 1. GROWING: A LINK TO HOME

Photo credits: Local Government Channel (2011) and 3D Plant Groundation (2007)

The Changing Taste of Food, Birmingham

As mentioned in the introduction, food is an important cultural asset, and can contribute to building individuals’ sense of identity. Examples of community food growing projects which have encouraged people from immigrant backgrounds to plant crops from their home country have demonstrated that allowing diverse food in a shared space can: • help to promote intercultural acceptance; • encourage food and health education, as well as knowledge sharing.

“Each member of a different nationality had a reason why they grew this crop, and the main reason was a link to home.”

Food Awareness & Growing Skills 3D Plant Groudation, Brixton

“Making an informed choice about the food we consume will enable us to take control of having a healthy body and lifestyle.”

2. WASTE IS THE EYES OF THE BEHOLDER

Invisible Food, Brixton

There are a few remarkable projects positively challenging the idea of waste, and offering opportunities for taste buds happiness in ugly fruits, supermarket bins and South London parks. They operate at different scales, but share a key attitude: resourcefulness, that is being innovative with what is freely available in their environment.

The People’s Kicthen, East London

“Invisible food responds to a sense of lack of earthly connections in inner city areas in London. It provides an opportunity to get on first name terms with local plants and to cook them up. Wild food is whole food. Wild food carries power and energy. Wild food is naturally occurring and uniquely adapted to its environment; resilience and strength are present in every cell of plant matter.” (Invisible Food 2008)

“All food has taken energy, time and resources to create. The People’s Kitchen aims to intersect this food surplus before it finds a sad end within our UK landfill sites which are presently full to bursting point.”

On the 16th December, as the snow drifted down upon Trafalgar Square, food on a literally Biblical scale was served out to hungry Londoners. 5000 curries were served, quarter of a tonne of smoothies and 3 tonnes of fresh groceries were given away all from food that would have otherwise gone to waste. It was all free, and it gave London a glimpse of the vast reserves of food hidden in the nation’s bins. (Feeding the 5000 2010)

(The People’s Kitchen 2011)

Photo credits: The People’s Kicthen (2011) and Feeding the 5000 (2010)

Feeding the 5000, Trafalgar Square

3. CONVIVIALITY

Streetfeast, Ireland

Food has recently been rediscovered as a pretext to reclaim the social role of streets and public spaces. Street Feast in Ireland, the Big Lunch in the UK, Repas de Quartier in France, are all nation-wide initiatives that encourage people to bond with their neighbours over a shared meal. But conviviality does not have to be about sharing a table with dozens of strangers. It can also be in the mundane act of grocery shopping, like knowing from which tree the apples that served to make that jar of chutney fell. Conviviality is about sharing, not only time, but also stories.

To celebrate our streets, cul-de-sacs, neighbourhoods & local communities. To encourage more life on the streets, feel safer and reduce loneliness and isolation. To share great local food, home-grown produce, cracking stories, bad jokes, practical skills, useful tools, different customs, common ground… (StreetFeast 2011)

Cornercopia, Brixton

“A tiny neighbourhood restaurant and new kind of corner shop all about ultra-local food and sustainability ... The aim is to give small producers and growers an opportunity to sell locally more easily ... Our menu celebrates diversity of ingredients available on our doorstep, in the market or from local growers and urban foragers.” (Cornercopia 2011)

Photo credits: Street Feast (2010) and Cornercopia (2011)

THE NETWORKING SALAD This section introduces the people I have met who have inspired, supported or helped the project. It goes into the details of: how I contacted them what food was shared with them what came out of the meeting

23/07 First meeting at the Brixton Reuse Centre, which is currently being set up in lot of disused garages in Loughborough Junction, to host local makers turning locally generated waste into affordable goods. Hannah was looking for a graphic designer to work on a visual identity. The meeting involved a discussion around the refurbishment of the site with the rest of the project teams and some volunteers from Architecture for Humanity.

ACTIVE MEMBER OF TRANSITION TOWN BRIXTON. COORDINATES THE BRIXTON REUSE CENTRE PROJECT. GREAT KNOWLEDGE OF LOCAL NETWORKS. Email introduction by Paul Micklewaithe, after recommendation by Anne Chick

Homemade cakes by Hannah Although I chose not to get involved as a graphic designer, because I believed an agency would do a better job than my time deprived self, this first meeting led onto a second one, which really launched the project.

28/07 One-to-one meeting at the Ritzy cinema. The discussion revolved around our love for Brixtonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s energy Britxon, the work of Transition Town Brixton, and current sustainable food projects Hannah was aware of. (See Appendix 5). Chips from the Ritzy cafĂŠ. A big list of people involved in food projects to contact!

LOCAL ARTIST, RUNNING INVISIBLE FOOD, A COMMUNITY EDUCATIONAL PROJECTS INVOLVING URBAN FORAGING AND COOKING. Workshop adverstised online. Simply walked in as a participant.

07/08 I joined one of Ceri Buckâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Invisible Food workshops, taking place in Ruskin Park. Together with 15 other people of all ages and all origins, we picked up blackberries, and made ice-cream from it (it was a masterpiece). This was followed by a potluck picnic and a walk during which we spotted not less than 15 edible plants I had no idea existed. What seems to make the project successful is its playful and exploratory approach. It encourage participants to look at their urban environment differently, and to experiment and learn from eachother by sharing recipes. It is also remarkable for its inclusiveness. Previous projects include the production of a local Nettle & Ginger beer made and sold by local children in Brixton Village, West African plants growing and cooking at Brockwell Park Community Greenhouses, and coffee ceremonies with Eritrean and Ethiopian residents. Freshly made blackberry ice-cream. Dishes prepared by participants, including: Ewedu stew prepared by John (England-France), after a recipe by Sadiatu (Sierra Leone), garlic bread baked by Sylvie (England), ginger cake baked by Marion (Jamaica). Inspiration, a few new friends, and the validation that food is a great conversation starter and social network weaver.

SET UP THE PEOPLE’S KITCHEN AT PASSING CLOUDS, DALSTON, A WEEKLY SOCIAL GATHERING TURNING FOOD WASTE FROM LOCAL BUSINESSES INTO A FEAST OPEN TO ALL. Through his cousin, former student Louise Wilson, and by volunteering.

11/08 Conversation about the story of The People’s Kitchen, and the practicalities of setting one up. Peppermint tea. Steve is very keen on spreading The People’s Kitchen into other locations. After this meeting, my project turned into a mission to find out how, where and with who to set up a Brixton version.

BOTH MEMBERS OF THE LOUGHBOROUGH JUNCTION ACTION GROUP, AN ARTS-LED REGENERATION PROJECT. Through Hannah Lewis.

12/08 04/09 Volunteered at The People’s Kitchen. Brief chat about future plans, including the possibility of funding for starting up People’s Kitchen in other places. Too much to remember. Further inspiration and enthusiasm.

Conversation about setting up a People’s Kicthen in Loughborough Junction. Anthea and Lois both loved the idea and mentioned that residents had expressed the need for food-related projects in the area. Peppermint tea. Anthea & Lois pointed me towards a few more people to contact, encouraged me to submit a proposal for funding from LJAG and gave me some ideas about hosting the events in empty shops.

LOCAL ARTIST, TRYING TO DEVELOP BRIXTON STOCK MARKET, A SOCIAL ENTERPRISE THAT WOULD MAKE FOOD FROM WASTE FOOD COLLECTED FROM THE MARKET. SHE ALSO WORKS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL CHARITY GROUNDWORK. Through Hannah Lewis.

12/08 First meeting at the Ritzy cinema. Long conversation about our shared obsession for Brixton market. We also talked about the polarisation happening in Brixton Village between traditional food traders and newer, trendier, cafĂŠs and shops. While there is no doubt that its regeneration brought even more positive energy into the area, we shared a similar concern about it becoming out of reach for local residents, especially from the adjacent Coldharbour ward, which is still one of the most deprived of the country. Finally, we dicussed potential business models, for both of our projects. Apple Juice. A new friend. Potential collaboration and skills exchange, at least for research.

08/09 We met up again at Brixton Market near closure time and talked with a few traders about their food waste. We got very mixed answers. Most stall owners said that they never had any food to throw away. One particular trader even affirmed that he sold everything, including fruits and vegetables passed their edible stage. Grocery store owners were slightly more receptive and told us that the best time to collect the food was early in the morning. While walking around the market, we also observed a few people picking up food from the floor before the Veolia van cleared the streets. This led onto a discussion about ethics, and the risk of taking food away from people needing it more than us. Tea and ginger bicuits. We realised that getting the food could be more of a challenge than we imagined, not only because of the hostility of some traders, but also for ethical reasons. We discussed other potential approaches, like befriending one single trader, linking up with the Market Traders Federation or Veolia, or skip dive at the New Covent Garden Market instead of Brixton Market.

SET UP CORNERCOPIA, IN BRIXTON VILLAGE, WHICH SHE DEFINES AS AN HYPERLOCAL DELI AND RESTAURANT. SHE SOURCES FOOD AS LOCALLY AS POSSIBLE, FROM BRIXTON MARKET, FROM LOCAL MAKERS AND FROM LOCAL WILD FOOD.

GREEN CHAMPION FOR LAMBETH. ACTIVELY INVOLVED WITH INREDIBLE EDIBLE LAMBETH, A LOCAL NETWORK OF SUSTAINABLE FOOD PROJECTS. Through Hannah Lewis.

Emailed after eating at the restaurant.

02/09 Conversation in Brixton Village. Anne told me the story of Cornercopia and talked about the work of Space Makers, who facilitated creative use of empty units by local residents to rejuvenate the arcade. She also mentioned her attempts to develop more of a network with exotic food traders in Brixton Village. Finally, she talked about the difficulties of running a business, and shared her project ideas, which revolved around telling the individual stories behind the food sold in the shop and encouraging people to explore the diversity of ingredients available at the street market, through crowdsourced recipes. Apple Juice pressed by local resident in his back garden. Inspiration. Better insight of the relational dynamics between the “new” and the “old” Brixton Market.

09/09 Susan organised a networking lunch with myself, and two anti-food waste heroes: Alice, who runs the Dinner Exchange in North London (a monthly feast cooked with food collected from skipped in New Covent Garden market, the proceeds from which go to food justice charities like FareShare) and Silver, who set up Best Before (a charity that collects products past their “best before” date but still good for consumption, and redistributes them to homeless chaities). Okonomiyaki from Okan, a Japanese street food restaurant in Brixton Village. Inspiration. Interesting discussion about food skipping ethics and practicalities.

11/09

BRIXTON LOW CARBON ZONE WASTE PREVENTION ADVISER AT LAMBETH CUNCIL. ORGANISED WORKSHOPS ABOUT FINDING BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES IN WASTE FROM BRIXTON MARKET. Through Hannah Lewis. Went to one of the workshops.

Spontaneous visit to Brockwell Park’s Community Greenhouses, where I had a brief chat with one of the volunteers. At the same time, a cooking workshop was taking place with local children. They were very engaged, and approaching them would have been slightly too disruptive, but simply seeing cooking activities happening confirmed the importance of food growing projects as a catalyst for food education and knowledge sharing. Nothing!

14/09

Urge to volunteer.

I took part in a Brixton Low Carbon Zone workshops organised by Andrea. She had invited Christian, from East London, who talked about how he set up the Pallet Project, turning found pallets into furniture. What came out of his presentation was the spontaneity of the venture, which started as a lonely temporary project and evolved into an open community workshop. Participants then dicussed how to connect this East London project with Hannah Lewis’ Brixton Reuse Centre. Virginia Nimarkoh then presented her idea for Brixton Stock Market and got useful feedback from the participants, which I also benefited from. Biscuits and apple juice. More local connections, like Nicholas, a very involved resident from Loughborough Estate. We discussed my intention to set up a People’s Kicthen there and the need for intergenrational projects.

SET UP LOCAL CHARITY PEOPLE EMPOWER PEOPLE. CURRENTLY SETTING UP A COMMUNITY GARDEN IN LOUGHBOROUGH ESTATE, WHERE HE GREW UP AND KNOWS NEARLY EVERYONE.

18/09 Every year, Myatt’s Field Park hosts a Harvest Festival, inviting local “food heroes” to cook their speciality for other local residents, using the vegetables grown in the park’s community greenhouses. At the last minute, I decided to have a look, and started to help out. The first person I met was Saxa, who manages the park’s Little Cat Café. I helped him set up tables and gazeebos, and then spontaneously volunteered at the café for a good part of the afternoon, where I learned about its social enterprise status. Open 4 days a week, it serves food that is cooked with vegetables grown in the greenhouses, and offers work experience opportunities to local residents who struggle to find work. I then went to explore the “food heroes” table, and started cutting spinach for Segen, who was preparing Eritrean food, helped by her Jamaican retired neighbour, Henry. She considered working on that day as an opportunity to improve her skills, and expressed the desire to get more involved, with the prospect of finding employment.

MANAGES THE LITTLE CAT CAFÉ.

LOCAL “FOOD HERO”. SHE HELPED ORGANISING THE BIG LUNCH AT LOUGHBOROUGH ESTATE IN JUNE. SHE ALSO MADE A VIDEO TO SHOW PEOPLE IN THE ESTATE HOW TO RECYCLE PROPERLY AND HOW TO AVOID FOOD WASTE AT HOME. SHE DOESN’T PRESENT HERSELF AS ONE, BUT SHE SURELY IS A GREEN CHAMPION.

Segen’s freshly cooked Erithrean food, Ewedu stew prepared by John and Sadiatu, who I had met at the Invisible Food walk, and some apple and cinammon cake donated by a local resident. Made new friends. Decided to volunteer again at the café, as I already saw opportunities for improvement which I would like to explore. Talked about working again on food projects with Segen.

FOOD MANAGER AT MYATT’S FIELD PARK. SHE ORGANISES FOOD EVENTS WITH LOCAL RESIDENTS, LIKE THE RETIRED PEOPLE’S LUNCH CLUB AND THE PARENT’S BREAKFAST CLUB.

LEARNINGS Taking part in Myatt’s Field Park Harvest Festival almost felt like attending my own project idea. While I had felt frustrated for not having the time to organise a People’s Kitchen prototype, as I had originally planned, this last minute surprise made me understand the value of a slow immersion into the context before attempting to “solve” anything. The main reasons are: • to avoid spending time and energy into a solution that is redundant, and find out instead where ingenuity is most needed. • to make sure the project makes the best use of resources already available, and is nurtured by local energy. In terms of process, I learned a lot about “networking”. The main points are that: • volunteering is the best way to establish meaningful relationships with people already involved in relevant projects. • taking my designer hat off made it much easier to have genuine conversations and discover where I was most useful. • leaving room for the unexpected to happen is more rewarding than approaching someone with a set agenda.

MAINS By now, you should be ready to consume the core of this project: what is, in design language, traditionally called the â&#x20AC;&#x153;solutionâ&#x20AC;?. However, this project has not been focused on a specific problem, but rather on exploring some themed issues, and allowed those to shape a social enterprise - or social happening - idea. In cooking language, it has merely been about finding the right seasoning for it.

WHAT’S THE DISH THEN? 1. TAKING A DECISION Meeting and listening to local people, as well as mapping and taking part in local projects completely focused the project. It became clear that it was going to be a Brixton-seasoned People’s Kitchen for four reasons: • the enthusiasm met locally about the idea • the abundance of local food growing projects, and the inexistence of local food waste initiatives. • the flexibility of the People’s Kitchen model, which would allow it to be a catalyst for other projects, existing or future. • its non-commercial nature, which would make it sensitive to the levels of deprivation of the area. Therefore, the following chapter is about investigating business models that will allow it to emerge from local energy, rather than being “parachuted” from East London to Brixton.

2. BASIC INGREDIENTS When I met Steve, he listed four ingredients necessary to start a People’s Kicthen: people, food, space and equipment. The plates on the right are the result of a brainstorming session, aiming at clarifying the opportunities discovered during the scoping phase. In some respect, these are the stepping stones of a prototype.

3. OUTSOURCING INGREDIENTS In order to “season” the basic recipe, I developed a brainstorming technique, which I tested during a class meeting at university. I gave a paper plate and some markers to each participant. I then asked a series of questions for them to answer by drawing and writing on the plate. These were aimed at encouraging them to express their view of conviviality, such as: “describe you ideal meal” “who would you invite to cook it with you”, “who would you like to share it with” “what else would happen”, etc. After inviting them to share and talk about what they had drawn, I distributed a second plate. This time, I asked them to imagine what ingredients would be necessary to set up a People’s Kitchen in Brixton. This had two objectives. The first one was to generate ideas around potential business models that added elements of local distinctiveness to the four basic ingredients. The second one was to prompt a discussion on how best to bring these ingredients into the mix. This workshop was just a way to test this brainstorming technique. Ideally, it would be repeated with a group of local people who have expressed an interest in the project, would incite them to contribute their knowledge of local resources, and would eventually facilitate their sense of ownership over the project.

A PLATTER OF RESOURCES

1. PEOPLE > networking and promotion > advice and financial support > practical help on the day > projects link up

Volunteers from the Little Cat CafĂŠ could help out.

Women from the Brixton Women Centre could share their cooking skills.

Young people from the Loughborough Youth Project could learn cooking skills.

2. FOOD

Food waste could also occasionally be skipped from the New Covent Garden Market in Vauxhall.

Food could be collected from the Best Before project.

Myattâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Fields Park Community Grenhouses could provide some vegetables

Food heroes Segen, Sadiatu and John could be named head chefs.

Invisible Food walks could happen occasionally before or during the big cook up.

Food waste could be cautiously collected from Brixton Market, only after reaching an agreement with some traders. Possible approaches to get more supportive attitudes from traders would be to invite them to the event, or to give them a way to show they have supported the local community by sending them a thank you display for their shop.

3. SPACE AND EQUIPEMENT

4. THE “F” WORD

> not fully equipped > fully equiped > funding opportunities

Although this project is intended to make the best use of available resources, funding will be needed to buy equipment that the space might not provide, and might also go towards developing a professional training scheme in food and hygiene.

Freecycle could be used to find equipement.

Little Cat Café

Loughborough Community Centre Lambeth Women’s Project

Empty shops

CELEBRATION STEW This is a very early blueprint of the shape the project could take. There are still many unknown factors, but these will be explored in future meetings with people who have expressed an interest in the project.

DESSERT A good dessert is a real dessert. No doubt about it. Who wants to bite into a paper cake? For this project to be deemed successful, all these ideas will have to be explored further. They will have to be prototyped, they will have to fail, and they will have to be tasted again.

SO, WHAT’S NEXT? The joint interest expressed by The People’s Kitchen, the Loughborough Junction Action Group and Susan Sheehan, from Incredible Edible Lambeth, to support the project is a great encouragement to take it further. So far, the following groups and places have been identified as potential starting points:

BRIXTON WOMEN’S INSTITUTE: Another meeting with Virginia Nimarkoh has been planned. She has invited Ego, founder of the Brixton Women’s Institute, who is interested in organising skipped dinners. BWI meetings take place in the Lambeth Women Project, which has a fully functioning kitchen.

LOUGHBOROUGH ESTATE: A meeting with Nicholas, from the Loughborough Estate is being planned. during which he will introduce Trevor, who is the youth worker for the estate and has started to get young people cooking. The Youth Centre of the Loughborough Community Centre are possible venues, although not ideal. Empty shops have been identified in the area. Help from the Meanwhile Project, which supports community uses of empty spaces, could be seeked through the Loughborough Junction Action Group.

MYATT’S FIELD PARK: Volunteering more regularly at the Little Cat Café will be a way to explore further possibilities.

DIGESTIF

OBJECTIVES On a personal level, this project was approached as an opportunity to delve deeper into subjects I am passionate about: food, cultural diversity and social inclusion. It was intended to help me understand how my design and creative thinking skills can be used to support social innovation projects. My objectives were to: • gain the confidence to implement or support social innovation projects. • have made valuable contacts for future food related projects. • have a sufficient understanding of sustainable food systems to focus my future work on the subject. The second and third objective were achieved quite successfully. However, the first one appears like it is going to be a long process.

CHALLENGES 1. TIME DEPRIVATION During the course of the project, I completed two internships, which slightly took my energy away from it. The first one was at social design agency thinkpublic and lasted a month. I worked on an internal social innovation project, that aims to give people the opportunity to meet and form family-like relationships in their local area. It raised interesting questions, which are, in a

certain extent, related to this project: How can you connect with someone who is older and wiser to get general advice over a cup of tea? How do you meet the neighbour who can offer practical day-today help? How can you find the safety, warmth and support that family generally represents when you live far away from other members of your family? This project was mostly self-led, and developed my understanding of the iterative nature of social innovation, which changed my appreciation of failure and success. The second internship, which started in August, is with the Innovation Unit, a social enterprise using innovation to tackle social challenges, mostly in health and education. Although my role has mostly consisted in visual communication tasks, I gained a slight insight into service design and codesign methods, as well as in ethnographic research. These learnings are all very valuable, and have relatively informed my research process. However, I do wish I had had more time and energy to pass the idea stage and start prototyping with local people interested in the project.

2. SELF-RELIANCE The second challenge encountered during this project was the fact that I was not accountable to anyone. I had decided to conduct this research from my own initiative and did not have any organisation to report back to. This allowed me to approach the project as an open-ended investigation, which was fascinating, but made it difficult to determine aims and objectives. However, building up a network of contacts did, in some respect, focus my research, as it raised expectations for the people who offered me their help and support.

3. DESIGN? The last difficulty, and perhaps the most challenging one, was to understand what I had to offer. In most cases, introducing myself as a designer often felt inadequate, not only because it raised expectations of what I could contribute, but also because, as I realised later, my enquiry into food systems and social inclusion had little to do with discovering how to apply my design skills to support social innovation projects. It was in fact, motivated by a broader personal interest for the subject. At times, I even felt that my design “skills” were mostly a pretext to make cooking friends.

PROCESS

Moreover, the community groups and projects I have encountered had their own informal energy. Design is a systemised disruptive process, and requires a certain analytical distance. This first stage of the project

oscillated between personal involvement and analytical design distance. Eventually, helping out by chopping spinach, introducing people to each other and listening to stories felt like a more appropriate contribution. And, if it is possible to positively “disrupt” informal energy, I have not figured out how. However, design still had a role to play. My visual communication background has been a great resource in the process of making sense of all the information gathered. It helped me to unveil opportunities, by mapping assets and networks. This will inform the next stage which is about prototyping and implementation. Finally, this project is better defined as a design research-led entrepreneurship project than as design project, both in terms of process and intended outcomes. My main learning has been to understand some of the skills and mind-set required for designers to become self-motivated social innovators.

DESIGN AS A PROFESSION

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

• part of a team

• lonely

• task specific

• versatile

• time-bound

• 24/7

• disciplined

• messy

SKILLS

• iterative • communication skills

• social skills

• knowledge-based

• unknown and unexpected

SUCCESS

• system thinking

• client / user assessed

• self-assessed

• solution deliverd

• network weaved, potentials unfolded

• usability, esthetics, values

• feasibility

LEARNINGS My research started with the hypothesis that food, and conviviality, were a way to get people engaged with sustainability issues. I have encountered a few projects, who do this very successfully, and this has, in some way, validated this hypothesis. However, I have also discovered that food is a pretext. Cooking is just one in many activities around which social networks are weaved. There are various elements that make it particularly successful, such as the notion of cultural heritage, the spontaneous skillshare that happens when two people cook together, as well as the hedonistic aspect of feasting. To conclude, I should go back to my primary question: â&#x20AC;&#x153;how can sustainability-minded projects become more inclusive?â&#x20AC;? One of the answers I formulated during this enquiry is that I am not sure they can. In some respect, they have to be born inclusive, they have to emerge from existing and evolving networks of people, who are motivated by many different factors. Maybe trying to be inclusive is remembering that we are dealing with individuals, before dealing with communities.

APPENDICES

SE1’S GOT TALENTS GROUP PROJECT WITH USCREATES, FOR THE URBAN PHYSIC GARDEN The context In July, myself and my coursemates spent a few weeks assisting social design agency, UsCreates, on a project for the Urban Physic Garden. This temporary project has beautifully transformed a neglected site into a medicinal garden, and represents great potential to inspire and educate people about urban growing and sustainability. However, very few local residents seemed to make use of it. The Urban Physic Garden team therefore asked UsCreates to help them engage the local community. And UsCreates has asked us to do it.

Day 1 Our first meeting with UsCreates consisted of a short presentation on their past engagement projects, and a discussion about engagement methods. We then brainstormed and came up with a plan to conduct micro interviews in the street and in some local estates on the same day. Holding a map, we approached people and asked them if they knew where the Urban Physic Garden was. This was used as a prompt to speak a bout the project, investigate their understanding of it. We realised that many people simply didn’t relate to the space. We encountered a lot of enthusiasm, but also quite a bit of misunderstanding, and sometimes even some resentment. Too museum-like, too closed-off, too sophisticated, too intimidating, too “middleclass.” So we asked what they would like to see in it, and what type of activities were missing in the area. Most answers were pretty straightforward: tea, cakes, music and games. 63

Our response So we planned and a community afternoon at the garden. We ran fun activities at the site for both children and adults to participate in. The main aim of this workshop was to engage with the local community and welcome them to the site. Through this we hoped to unfold the potential of local residents to contribute to the project.

We opened the big fence, hung balloons, smiled, encouraged people to fill up wish tags, played, named everyone director of their favourite thing to do, and had general fun. We learned that the simplest changes, like opening the gates, can make a huge difference in the way people interact with a space.

FINDING A LANGUAGE FOR SUSTAINABLE BUILDING. GROUP PROJECT WITH THE NATIONAL TRUST, MORDEN HALL PARK What follows is a blogpost written to summarise the project, on 19 July 2011. For the last few months, we have been working with the National Trust on their ‘Heart of The Park’ project at Morden Hall Park, in the South of London. Using sustainable refurbishing techniques and materials, they have been renovating a nineteenth century stable yard, which will be turned into an educational centre for the local community. The building will host a permanent exhibition on sustainable renovation and green living. We participated in the inspiration phase of the project, and advised the team on how to create a convivial and interactive space to make the sustainability narrative exciting for everyone. The challenge is to inspire people on a subject like building and refurbishing, which, let’s face it, can be quite dull, especially for a population as socially diverse as in Morden. So we have looked at various ways to engage people, and to take an inclusive approach. To be convincing, the exhibition will have to take into account the fact that visitors

will not necessarily be home owners, but might be renting and have a limited budget. It will have to value small steps towards green living, as much as big sustainable refurbishing initiatives. It should also allow local communities to take ownership of the exhibition, and find a way to reward local champions. Having shared these principles with the team, we also felt that it was necessary to find out how much knowledge does the community already have. For this, we worked with PhD students Daphne and Sietze, from Delft University. Together, they run the Living Green Labs, which are knowledge transfer workshops on eco-products, sustainable renovation and green behaviours. England being England, it rained. All day long. So despite our motivation, our beautiful display, our balloons and our bunting, we didn’t get to do much engagement. But we learned a few things: •

never overplan an event which is going to happen outdoors (in England, that is).

•

designing a game, even the simplest, is a difficult – but fun – process of trials and errors.

•

knitting with plastic bags is quite fun and can give beautiful results.

•

the process is as important as the end result: we enjoyed the making, the thinking, the designing… never mind the failing!

We hope our approach has been useful to the National Trust and to the lovely Living Green team, and that it will inform the next steps of the project. We are looking forward to see how it develops!

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