Food Cosmogonies

Short Courses

2022-23

Food Cosmogonies is an online course pursuing the reconceptualisation of the world through food. We aim to establish food and cooking as inherent signifiers of human culture, and therefore ideal material for the world-making process. We will justify cuisine’s crucial role for the human being as a social individual and demonstrate how society’s structures of power and hierarchy throughout history can be discussed using the dinner metaphor. We find food the best platform to talk about politics.

This course will start in October 2022 and run until May 2023.

This course runs in two strands:
FOUNDATIONS & EXPEDITIONS

FOUNDATIONS lays the groundwork for an understanding of food as the ideal world-building material. We re-examine moments and events in world history, and investigate socio-political issues through the lens of food. This strand is delivered mostly by Inês Neto dos Santos & Nora Silva, alongside a few guest-speakers, over the course of one academic year, and we offer feedback/crit sessions with participants who wish to develop their own projects as part of the course. FOUNDATIONS is accompanied by a series of sessions we call COOKING PRACTICE, where guest cooks deliver practical sessions to share a recipe as cooking-thinking methodology, a way of setting to practice some of the topics discussed throughout the year.

FOUNDATIONS runs weekly on Mondays at 6pm to 7:30pm GMT and it costs £650

FOUNDATIONS is no longer accepting participants for 22/23

EXPEDITIONS is an expanded strand of Food Cosmogonies, ideally aimed at those who are interested in delving deeper into the possibilities of food for re-imagining the world and our position in it. This strand is laid out in themed blocks which can be taken all together or separately, and is delivered by a selected group of guest speakers - from designers, chefs, farmers to artists whose practice is rooted in an understanding of food as the glue which holds us together.

EXPEDITIONS runs weekly on Wednesdays at 6pm to 7:30pm GMT and it costs £820 or £220 for a single block

All sessions are in English and delivered through Zoom.

YOU CAN STILL SIGN UP FOR SINGLE BLOCKS !

Expeditions Program
October 2022 to May 2023

TERM 1
I. Food in Reciprocity - 12th Oct - 2nd Nov
What might we learn through the principles of reciprocity in order to rethink the systems we live in? How may loop systems inform circular ways of living? We look into the past in order to build our future, investigating ancestral food practices as fundamental gateways into new and urgent networks of collaborative care. Speakers: Rowen White Douglas McMaster, Sandor Katz, Institute for genomic gastronomy

II. Food as Material - 16th Nov - 7th Dec
This block brings together artists and creative practitioners whose work uses food as material. Throughout it, we investigate and question the use of food-based materials to create objects or experiences, pondering on its possibilities for social regeneration and/or its dangers for destruction. Speakers: Rain Wu, Chloé Rutzerveld, Grant Gibson and Caroline Hobkinson

TERM 2
III. Queer Food - 11th Jan - 15th Feb
Departing from a muddled ground where we challenge the concept of gender and sexuality binaries, we will investigate how food relates to queerness. Looking into gendered cooking spaces and their impact on imposed gender roles, we will also examine gendered food pronouns in some languages and how the idea of them might be affected. Furthermore, we will look at food security within the queer community, and put to the front empowering food practices that combat these issues. What does a safe queer food space look like? Speakers: Yamuna Sangarasivam, Justin Wong, Queer Food Foundation, Noam Youngrak Son, Parama Roy, Shakuntala Ray

IV. Food and Magic - 22nd Feb - 22nd Mar
Ritual has wrapped food practices since the beginning of eating. On this Block we will research the concept of magic, and how it has been attached to culinary practices throughout history. We will examine superstitions, rites and ceremonies surrounding foods around the world, detaching ourselves as much as possible from the technic (Federico Campagna) or agrologistic ideologies (Timothy Morton). Speakers: Federico Campagna, Andy Letcher, Non Human Non Sense, Diana Policarpo

TERM 3
V. Food in the Capitalocene - 29th Mar - 3rd May
Artificial Intelligence cooking robots and virtual reality headsets at dinner, just how far can we sneak into the future of food technology? Will we have to cook at all? Can VR change our taste? Is 3D printed meat the answer to a sustainable carnivore routine? We will address these questions and expand into the possibilities that we can glimpse through food’s newest innovations. Speakers: Alla Katsnelson, Mattia Casalegno, Johnny Drain, Chiara Giovando

VI. Food and Science Fiction - 10th May - 31st May
Considering the current possible realities as somehow stagnant, this Block will aim to push into speculative fictions of foodscapes. We will investigate how food has been portrayed in science fiction films, and immerse ourselves into the worldings of artists who have built their own. Can we propose new cracks for alternatives to filter through? How do we imagine alien or future foodscapes? Speakers: Chris Fite-Wassilak, Laila Snevele, Zoe Hegedus, Piyali Silcar

EXPEDITIONS runs weekly on Wednesdays 6-7.30pm GMT.
All sessions are in English and delivered through Zoom.

Expeditions Guest Speakers 2022-23

ROWEN WHITE

Rowen White is a Seed Keeper and farmer from the Mohawk community of Akwesasne and a passionate activist for indigenous seed and food sovereignty. She is the director and founder of Sierra Seeds, an innovative organic seed stewardship organisation focusing on local seed and education, based in Nevada City CA. Rowen is the current National Project Coordinator and advisor for the Indigenous Seed Keeper Network, which is an initiative of the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance, a non-profit organisation aimed at leveraging resources to support tribal food sovereignty projects. The mission of the Indigenous Seed Keepers Network is to nourish and assist the growing Seed Sovereignty Movement across Turtle Island. Rowen’s passion is in teaching and mentoring, and has developed many curricula which focus on holistic, indigenous permaculture based approach to seed stewardship which honours the many layers of seed culture; from practical hands-on skills, cultural context and memory with guiding principles that are rooted in an indigenous ecology of relations. She teaches and facilitates creative seed stewardship immersions around the country within tribal and small farming communities, as well as offering an online distance learning seasonal mentorship called Seed Seva. She weaves stories of seeds, food, culture and sacred Earth stewardship on her blog, Seed Songs.

https://sierraseeds.org/rowens-story/

CAROLINE HOBKINSON

Caroline Hobkinson is a food Anthropologist and food artist investigating the interrelationships between Tech, Food, Art and the Senses. Born in Cologne in 1979, trained at Central Saint Martin’s where she gained a degree in Fine Art and SOAS where she earned a master’s degree in Anthropology, she has been creating events and food installations, in galleries, museums and public spaces worldwide. She has published and co-authored numerous research and academic papers on the neuroscientific workings of eating behaviour and conducted anthropological qualitative research into food and drink habits and rituals. She is a fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

Operating within the intersections of technology, food and the senses, Caroline has been giving numerous interactive talks and lectures that re imagine people‘s food rituals.

Her work and research has appeared in numerous publications and she has collaborated on events for Unilever, Disney, Barilla, Magnum, Selfridges, Bang & Olufsen, Kensington Palace and PinkLady Apples.

RAIN WU

Rain Wu is a Taiwanese artist and architect based in London. Her work is conceptually driven and materialises in different forms and scales from drawing, sculpture, food performance, essay film to architectural installation.
She graduated from the Royal College of Art and University College London (Bartlett). Her artwork has been exhibited in Sharjah Biennial, Taipei Biennial, The Palestinian Museum, London Design Biennale, Istanbul Design Biennial; she was one of the Designers in Residence at the Design Museum (London) in 2016, an artist in residence at The Van Eyck (NL) 2018-9, and she is currently an associate lecturer at University of the Arts London and a pathway leader at CSVPA, Cambridge.

www.rainwu.net

JUSTIN WONG

Justin Wong is a London based interdisciplinary designer working at the intersections of apparel design, ecology, and scholarship. Inspired by non-human ecologies and social formations of ungovernability, his practice explores avenues for forging more-than-human relations for mutual flourishing. Drawing from theories of race, animality, and political ecology, his research interrogates mechanisms that uphold White humanism and seeks to decolonize the racialized conception of the “human.” He is currently interested in tracing the spectral potentials of non-human actors, particularly at molecular and microbial scales.
www.jwong.info / @justincywong

NONHUMAN NONSENSE

Nonhuman Nonsense is a research-driven design and art studio creating near-future fabulations and experiments somewhere between utopia and dystopia. They seek to transmute our relationship to the non-human, by embracing the contradictory and the paradoxical – telling stories that open the public imaginary to futures that currently seem impossible. Consisting of Leo Fidjeland, Linnea Våglund, and Filips Stanislavskis, it is based between Berlin and Stockholm.
https://nonhuman-nonsense.com/

ALLA KATNSNELSON

Alla Katsnelson is a freelance science writer and editor specialising in biology, health and medicine, technology and science policy. She is drawn to stories that reflect the complexities of how scientists go about their work. She loves writing about research methods — in the field and in the lab. She is a regular contributor at Chemical & Engineering News and I’ve also written for The New York Times, Knowable, Scientific American, Nature, BBC Focus, and other outlets. Her article in The Open Notebook on writing career-spanning profiles is anthologized in The Craft of Science Writing, published in 2020. She sometimes takes on writing, research and editing projects for foundations, nonprofits and companies when there’s no conflict of interest with what I cover as a reporter.
In a past life, she did a doctorate on mammalian brain development — rat whiskers, to be specific — at the University of Oxford. She was reborn as a science writer with the help of the Science Communication Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Before going freelance she was the news editor at The Scientist and a biomedical reporter at Nature. She lives in Western Massachusetts with her furniture-making husband and her mischief-making son. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers and the Association of Health Care Journalists.
https://www.allakatsnelson.com/

LAILA SNEVELE

Laila Snevele is a sensory food designer who explores the perception of food through multisensorial research. What role does colour, shape, texture, temperature, sound, mouthfeel and aroma play in our understanding of a certain food? And how can we use these elements to change or elevate our sense of taste? Snevele designs recipes for the brain.
"I see our senses as a free resource that we are not using the full potential of. In my practice I combine food design with multisensory research. I am interested in human behaviour and the stimuli that influence our choices and likings. I am curious to understand the brain, how it perceives different information and translates it in our food experience. I am curious if by arranging the knowledge available from science and combining it with creative application and research, I want to feed the brain the right information that would understand the stimuli in tasting sweet, sour, bitter umami or salty."

DOUGLAS MCMASTER

Douglas McMaster is a chef, an author, a presenter and the owner of Silo, the world’s first Zero Waste restaurant. At a young age, Doug was awarded ‘Britain’s Best Young Chef’ by the BBC. Some years later he was awarded Britain’s most Innovative chef by the ‘Young British Foodies’ (YBFs). More recently Doug was recognised by ‘The World’s 50 Best Restaurants’ as one of the ‘young people shaping the future of gastronomy’.
Before opening Silo, Doug worked at some of the world’s best restaurants including St. John, The Fat Duck and Noma.
In 2012, Doug worked under the legendary artist and Zero Waste visionary Joost Bakker, who challenged Doug to ‘not have a bin’. He then went on to present a TEDTalk titled ‘Waste Is A Failure Of The Imagination’ and has become a public speaker on the future of food. In 2014, Doug opened Silo the first Zero Waste restaurant, described by Doug as a ‘pre-industrial food system’. Silo has won awards for ‘Britain’s Most Ethical Restaurant,’ and ‘Britain’s Most Innovated Restaurant’ at the Craft Guild of Chefs Awards.

https://www.douglasmcmaster.com/

CHLOE RUTZERVELD

Chloé Rutzerveld is a food designer and futurist. She explores and challenges food production and consumption and is fascinated by nature, the human body and the strange relationship people have with food.
Chloé studied Industrial Design at the Technical University in Eindhoven. After graduating Cum Laude in 2014, she started her food design studio and became a fellow of the Next Nature Network.
Chloé’s work is interdisciplinary and a direct response to the things she questions or is fascinated about. By combining aspects of design, science and technology she thinks up new ways to make our food more efficient, healthy and sustainable. She communicates her ideas through speculative design probes, interactive installations, exhibitions and experimental dinners. By using food as medium, she makes new technologies and food related issues tangible for a wide variety of people, resulting in a better understanding and in-depth discussions. Chloé’s work is meant to inspire, provoke and educate while bridging the distance between research, production and consumption.
In addition to self-initiated research projects, Chloé works as curator of the Embassy of Food, inspirational speaker, guest teacher, and consultant.
In 2018 Chloé published her first book: Food Futures – How Design and Technology can Reshape our Food System.

www.chloerutzerveld.com

BAYO AKOMOLAFE
Bayo Akomolafe (Ph.D.), rooted with the Yoruba people in a more-than-human world, is the father to Alethea and Kyah, the grateful life-partner to Ije, son and brother. A widely celebrated international speaker, posthumanist thinker, poet, teacher, public intellectual, essayist, and author of two books, *These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home* *(North Atlantic Books)* and ***We Will Tell our Own Story: The Lions of Africa Speak,*** Bayo Akomolafe is the Founder of The Emergence Network and host of the online postactivist course, ‘We Will Dance with Mountains’. He currently lectures at Pacifica Graduate Institute, California and University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont. He sits on the Board of many organizations including Science and Non-Duality (US) and Local Futures (Australia). In July 2022, Dr. Akomolafe was appointed the inaugural Global Senior Fellow of University of California’s (Berkeley) Othering and Belonging Institute. He has also been appointed Senior Fellow for The New Institute in Hamburg, Germany.
www.bayoakomolafe.net
www.emergencenetwork.org

DIANA POLICARPO

Diana Policarpo is a visual artist and composer working in visual and musical media including drawing, video, sculpture, text, performance, and multi-channel sound installation. Policarpo investigates gender politics, economic structures, health, and interspecies relations through speculative transdisciplinary research.
She creates performances and installations to examine experiences of vulnerability and empowerment associated with acts of exposing oneself to the capitalist world.
https://dianapolicarpo.com/

MATTIA CASALEGNO

Mattia Casalegno was born in Naples, Italy in 1981. His work explores the physical and sensory perceptions of its viewers, evoking experiences that are fully immersive, sensorially embodied, and psychologically heightened. His art practice draws from the most disparate disciplines such as anthropology, ecology, biology, neurosciences, informatics, and focuses on the relations and tensions between Nature, society and technology.His work is been exhibited extensively in institutions such as MADRE, MACRO Museum, Auditorium, RomaEuropa Festival and Netmage in Italy, Mutek Festival in Canada, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts in Taiwan, International Symposium for Electronic Arts in S.Korea, Update Biennial in Belgium, SVA Gallery, the Satellite Fair, James Beard Foundation and LACMA in US.
Casalegno is currently assistant professor at the department of Digital Arts, Pratt Institute in New York, and critic at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence, Rhode Island.
http://www.mattiacasalegno.net/

SANDOR ELLIX KATZ

Sandor Ellix Katz is a fermentation revivalist. He is the author of five books: Wild Fermentation; The Art of Fermentation; The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved; Fermentation as Metaphor; and his latest, Fermentation Journeys. Sandor's books, along with the hundreds of fermentation workshops he has taught around the world, have helped to catalyse a broad revival of the fermentation arts. A self-taught experimentalist who lives in rural Tennessee, the New York Times calls him “one of the unlikely rock stars of the American food scene.” Sandor is the recipient of a James Beard award and other honours. For more information, check out his website:
www.wildfermentation.com

GRANT GIBSON

Grant Gibson is a UK-based design, craft and architecture writer and podcaster whose work has been published The Observer, New Statesman, The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, FRAME, Dwell, House & Garden and quite a few others.
During a long career in magazines, Grant has been editor of Blueprint, deputy editor of FX, and acting executive editor of the RIBA Journal. More recently he has been editor of Crafts and a contributing editor of the Dutch architecture title MARK. He was also the launch editor of the London Design Festival Guide and co-founded Real to Reel, the UK’s first film festival devoted to making.
In 2014 he curated, Space Craft: Architecture Meets Making, at the Platform Gallery on London’s King’s Road, which subsequently went on to tour nationwide, and in 2019 he launched the critically acclaimed podcast series Material Matters with Grant Gibson.
Grant was made an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Art in 2011 and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
https://grantondesign.com

GABRIELLE LENART /
THE QUEER FOOD FOUNDATION

Gabrielle B. Lenart (she/her) is an NYC-based community organizer and longtime home baker with over 5+ years of experience in digital marketing and content marketing strategy. She is co-founder of Queer Food Foundation, an organization dedicated to being a resource and platform for queer folks in food. She is also a Junior Board Member for Food Education Fund. She holds a master’s in Food Studies from New York University and a bachelor’s in Food Science from the Pennsylvania State University with her previous endeavors consisting of freelancing for organizations such as the James Beard Foundation and Cherry Bombe.
Her work has been featured in Chemical Senses, Journal of Physiology and Behavior, The James Beard Foundation Blog, Brooklyn Based, Dish Rag Magazine, and more. Her most popular publication, “Adapting Queer Foodways”, debuted in Gastronomica Fall 2020. She has been a guest speaker for universities like Penn State University, New York University, Pratt Institute, and has been featured on podcasts such as WNPR, Queer Teen Podcast, Cooking with Granny, The Voyages of Time Vetter, In Yo Mouth, and Women in Food on Clubhouse. In her free time, you can catch her at local queer events, playing basketball, or baking her famous cinnamon rolls.

@Gabriellebakes
https://www.queerfoodfoundation.org/

FEDERICO CAMPAGNA

Federico Campagna is an Italian philosopher and writer based in London. His latest books are *Prophetic Culture* (2021) and *Technic and Magic* (2018). He is Critical Fellow at the Royalty Academy Schools in London, Associate Fellow at the Warburg Institute in London, and a director at the radical publisher Verso Books. He is the host of the podcast Overmorrow's Library for the Centre of Contemporary Arts in Geneva. He is currently working on a new book on the history of world-building imagination in the Mediterranean.
https://www.federicocampagna.eu/

JOHNNY DRAIN

Johnny Drain works at the cutting edge of food, fermentation, design and sustainability, helping to rethink how we will feed the world of the future in a more healthy, regenerative, equitable and ecologically-friendly way.
Half chef, half scientist (having earned his PhD in Materials Science from the University of Oxford), Johnny has become a leading expert on fermentation, using it as a tool to create and amplify sustainability through deliciousness and reduce food waste in the world's best bars and kitchens. Moreover, he's become a trusted voice in exploring how what we grow and eat can change the health of the planet via his work with the food/design platform MOLD. He is an Associate Lecturer at University of the Arts, London.
www.drjohnnydrain.com / @drjohnnydrain

PIYALI SILCAR

Piyali is a Philadelphia-based design researcher and speculative designer. She has a Master in Design for Interaction from TU Delft (2018), was a Resident Artist at NEW INC (2019-20), is on the founding team of Greenish - a modern day Greenbook, and is the co-founder of Iskra - a speculative design workshop series. Her work has been exhibited at the Cube Design Museum and the Media Mediterranea Festival (2022).
As a Design Research Lead at Artefact during the day, she strives to incorporate strategic foresight and speculative thinking into her work to help clients imagine possible futures to design products and services for preferable futures. Her work aims to center future cultural values and social ethics because without this goal technology will lead to Dystopian futures (Monica Bielskyte).
She believes doing good research requires showing up with the vulnerability and empathy to understand people in their various contexts. She believes personas are a huge disservice to the humans we design for by refusing to acknowledge their many sides and multitudes. Piyali's favorite topics to think about and design for are the human microbiome, food insecurity, the patient experience, mycelium and using food waste in creative ways. She is currently experimenting with natural dyes and 3D printing.
https://www.piyalisircar.com/

THE CENTER FOR GENOMIC GASTRONOMY

The Center for Genomic Gastronomy is an artist-led think tank launched in 2010 by Cathrine Kramer (NO) and Zack Denfeld (US) that examines the biotechnologies and biodiversity of human food systems. They have completed research and exhibited in Asia, Europe and North America, collaborating with scientists, chefs, hackers and farmers. Their mission is to map food controversies, prototype alternative culinary futures, and imagine a more just, biodiverse & beautiful food system.
The Center’s work has been published in WIRED, We Make Money Not Art, Science, Nature and Gastronomica and exhibited at the World Health Organization, Kew Gardens, Science Gallery Dublin and others.

http://genomicgastronomy.com

YAMUNA SANGARASIVAM

Yamuna Sangarasivam is a Professor of Anthropology, Director of the Women and Gender Studies Undergraduate Program in Sociology & Anthropology at Nazareth College in Rochester, NY. Originally from Sri Lanka, Yamuna will draw from her background to talk about Queer Culinary Cultures of Resurgence.

NOAM YOUNGRAK SON

Noam Youngrak Son is a communication designer practicing queer publishing. The main question of their practice is about less normative methods of disseminating deviant narratives. They attempt to convey the stories of marginalized bodies which often include that of themselves into designed forms that do not conform to the cis-hetero-normative and colonial power structure. They inscribe myths for the underrepresented in various mediums, from books to public workshops to 3D printed sex toys.
http://www.d-act.org/

PARAMA ROY

Parama Roy is a Professor of English at the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on issues related to postcolonial theory and literatures; Victorian studies; appetite, consumption and taste/food studies; and animal studies. She is the author of three books, including, Alimentary Tracts: Appetites, Aversions and the Postcolonial (Duke, 2010), States of Trauma: Gender and Violence in South Asia (Zubaan, 2009), and Indian Traffic: Identities in Question in Colonial and Postcolonial India (University of California, 1998).

DR ANDY LETCHER

Dr Andy Letcher has doctorates in Ecology (from the University of Oxford) and the Study of Religion (King Alfred’s College, Winchester). He is a Senior Lecturer at Schumacher College, Devon UK, where he is the Programme Lead for the MA Engaged Ecology. His research interests focus on the contemporary use of psychedelics with a particular interest in the discourses by which people frame their experiences and by which those experiences become meaningful. He is currently researching ritual and animistic usage of psychedelics by contemporary British Druids, and the use of the Fly Agaric mushroom by the Plant Medicine community. He is the author of numerous papers on subjects as diverse as environmental protest, animism, fairies, the revival of the Heathen lyre, and the distribution of mammals across continents. He is the author of Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom. He plays English bagpipes, low whistle, and Dark Age lyre.

CHIARA GIOVANDO

Chiara Giovando is an artist and curator based in Joshua Tree CA. She is Senior Curator at Total Hall, an arts, architecture and ecology platform dedicated to exploring ancient and future technologies. Her work investigates the intersection of contemporary art and environmental science.

CHRIS FITE-WASSILAK

Chris Fite-Wassilak is a writer and critic based in London, whose books include Ha-Ha Crystal (Copy Press, 2016) and The Artist in Time (Herbert Press, 2020). He is a contributing editor of ArtReview and a regular contributor to publications including Art Agenda, Art Monthly, and frieze. His writing on food is included in the books The Politics of Food (Delfina Foundation/Sternberg, 2019), From the Pot to the Earth at Rochester Square (Sternberg, 2022), The Domestic Godless: the food, bad and the ugly (2017) and The Microbiopolitics of Milk (Inland/Documenta, 2022).

Zoe Hegedus is a food designer for film. She has worked in big productions such as Dune or Midsommar. Her culinary career started in San Sebastián, Spain where she was studying Culinary Art and Gastronomy at the Basque Culinary Center. She still gets some of her inspirations from the Basque Country where she first fell in love with the fresh ingredients, culinary traditions and the nature that has surrounded her. In the first few years she was working in different restaurant kitchens around Spain, from small traditional Basque restaurants to 3 Michelin stars restaurants such as El Celler de Can Roca. After the years spent in the restaurant world she decided to keep studying. She went to Milan, Italy to do a MA in Food Design and Innovation.
For several years now she has created unique pop- up dinners, eating experiences, food installations and edible tablescapes. She designs and styles food for movies and tv shows. She always strives to be creative with the food she invents, designs and prepares. She is based in New York City and works internationally.
https://www.zoehegedus.com/

Foundations General Program
October 2022 to May 2023

Food as Origin
Food has been present in many stories or myths of creation. In this section we will analyse the food elements in different religions and civilizations, to demonstrate how food is foundational in the construction of culture.

Food and Empire
Food is intrinsically linked to the development of the European empires. We start by examining the onset of agricultural societies, and move into the history of colonisation - laying out its dynamics using specific examples from the food industry.

Food and Sustainability
The module explores the ways the Earth has been affected by human behaviour and explores the correlations between capitalism and the climate crisis. We move on to focus on independent, more-than-human practices and methods through which to deviate ourselves from this pattern, expanding on the particular implications of food within it.

Food in Art History
Food has preoccupied artists’ fascination for most of human history, so this module could go on forever. Instead, it borrows major art examples from history and that changed and agitated the world at their time.

Food and Behaviour
Having surrounded the act of eating with a series of cultural norms loaded with meaning, humans make use of these rules to establish hierarchies. We will examine the history of table manners in Europe and its possible counteracts.

Food and Witchcraft
The module investigates the theory and history behind witchcraft. From Europe to the rest of the world, how did the idea of the witch originate and what role did food play in it?

Food and Gender
The module starts by exploring the basics of feminist theory, borrowing from leading philosophers on the subject. To avoid generalisations it then focuses on specific examples of different cultures, exploring the world of food through gender roles and the different roles food is called to play between the sexes.

FOUNDATIONS runs weekly on Mondays 6-7.30pm GMT.
All sessions are in English and delivered through Zoom.

Foundations Speakers 2022-23

NORA SILVA

Nora Silva (b. Madrid) is a Spanish-Chilean researcher and artist based in London and Madrid. She graduated from the Royal College of Art in July 2017, and, as an artist, has performed at leading UK institutions such as Tate Exchange, Design Museum and Camden Arts Centre in London. Nora uses performance as a signifying tool, active process in the genesis of alternative cosmologies, as a mechanism to resist imposed subjectivities. As a researcher, Nora is interested in the role of food in the arts, the postnatural and contemporary socio political theory. She also co-directs The Gramounce, an exhibition supper club, and MilesKm, an arts collective for the research of collaborative practices within the arts.

www.norasilva.com

ASUNCIÓN MOLINOS GORDO

Asunción Molinos Gordo (b. 1979, Aranda de Duero, Burgos, Spain) is a researcher and visual artist. Her practice is strongly influenced by disciplines such as anthropology, sociology and cultural studies. She questions the categories that define “innovation” in mainstream discourses today, working to generate a less urban-centric way of understanding progress.
The main focus of her work is contemporary peasantry. Her understanding of the figure of the small or medium farmer is not merely as food producer but as cultural agent, responsible for both perpetuating traditional knowledge and for generating new expertise. She employs installation, photography, video, sound and other media to examine the rural realm driven by a strong desire to understand the value and complexity of its cultural production, as well as the burdens that keep it invisible and marginalised. She has produced work reflecting on land usage, nomad architecture, farmers’ strikes, bureaucracy on territory, transformation of rural labour, biotechnology and global food trade.
www.asuncionmolinos.com

CAIQUE TIZZI

Caique Tizzi (São Paulo, Brazil) lives and works in Berlin. Tizzi is an artist, cook and event organiser. The focus of his practice revolves around an artistic approach to food, where the kitchen becomes part a studio, part a laboratory. His culinary experiences aim to create a ritual around the table, a theatralisation over the ordinary and mundane act of eating together.
In 2011, Tizzi co-founded Agora Collective in Berlin and developed its artistic and food platforms until 2019. Since 2017, Caique Tizzi has been organising Babes Bar together with Adam Fearon.
Tizzi has collaborated and contributed with his work for organisations like the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlinische Galerie, Martin Gropius Bau, Kunsthalle Osnabrück, Medialab Prado Madrid, Berlin Art Week amongst others. And his projects have been supported by Creative Europe, Nordic Culture Point, Nordic Culture Fund, Goethe Institut Sao Paulo and Kuala Lumpur, Foodculturedays Switzerland, Kulturprojekte Berlin.
www.caiquetizzi.com

INÊS NETO DOS SANTOS

Inês Neto dos Santos is a multi-disciplinary artist, born in Lisbon and based in London/Brussels. She completed an MA in Visual Communication at Royal College of Art (2016) and a BA in Graphic Design and Illustration at London College of Communication (2013). Her practice moves between performance, installation and social sculpture, investigating the socio-political implications of what we eat and how we come to eat it. In her work, she creates contexts and frameworks through which to explore collaboration, generosity, care and togetherness. In recent years, Inês has delved into the practical and metaphorical dimensions of fermentation, as a gateway into our enmeshed, multispecies existence. She has recently been a guest lecturer at Kingston University, Brighton University and Westminster University. She co-directs arts collective The Gramounce with artists Nora Silva and Finn Thomson.

www.ines-ns.com

CÉLINE PELCÉ

Considering eating as a symbiotic and symbolic experience, Céline Pelcé addresses the food material as a landscape contextualized element, that embodies narratives, history and poetry of a place. To share her explorations, she creates site-responsive culinary experiences, in the form of collective meals, performances or edible installations. Conducting field work in different contexts, mainly nomadic for a few years in Europe, North America, and last year in Japan, she explores how the bodies, their gestures and related rituals can be the tools to a journey through the complexity of the places we live in, aiming for a sensorial understanding.
Coming from a background in both food and interior design, Céline Pelcé is a french food artist and designer. Her explorations take shape through numerous collaborations with designers, artisans, chefs, and artists, in order to cross mediums for a common narrative. She has notably worked with the design unit of Lab-Ah in a psychiatric hospital unit (FR), collaborated with the foodlab of the Jan Van Eyck Academy (NL) and Marente Van der Valk, and recently explored the rituals of the tea ceremony during her residency at Villa Kujoyama (JP) in 2021.

www.celinepelce.fr

SALMA SERRY

Salma Serry is a food researcher, writer and filmmaker. She is the founder of @Sufra_Kitchen, a social media platform that re-approaches food history and culture of the region. In 2020, while pursuing her graduate studies in Gastronomy at Boston University, she launched an independent project that has collected, archived and now houses over 400 historical regional cookbooks and culinary ephemera, which help inform her research practice.
Her approach centers on contextualizing and analyzing history, archives and memory to highlight forgotten, contested, or marginalized narratives that tend to disappear against hegemonizing national cuisines and identity politics. The result of her work is often an investigation - habitually in writing and occasionally in a film format- of the entanglement of food in class, migration, and culture as it occurs/ed in Egypt and the Arab Gulf.
Her latest writings were published in Arab Literature Quarterly, CNT Traveller and You Are Here: The Journal of Creative Geography. She also enjoys designing and conducting workshops that invite reflections and dialogue around the aforementioned topics, as recently commissioned by Art Jameel and Al Serkal Avenue.

www.salmaserry.com

JASLEEN KAUR

Jasleen Kaur (b.1986, Glasgow, Scotland) is an artist based in London. Her work is an ongoing exploration into the malleability of culture and the layering of social histories within the material and immaterial things that surround us. Her practice examines diasporic identity and hierarchies of history, both colonial and personal. Fluidly moving between sculpture, video and writing, Kaur initiates work that enables her to make sense of what is out of view or withheld. Recent and upcoming commissions include Tramway, Glasgow, Wellcome Collection, Touchstones Rochdale, Glasgow Women’s Library, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and Hollybush Gardens. Her work is part of the permanent collection of Touchstones Rochdale, Government Art Collection and Crafts Council.
Photo by Robin Silas

www.jasleenkaur.co.uk

JELENA BELGRAVE
I am Jelena Belgrave, a fermentation educator, macrobiotic/wholefoods cook and a part-time potter in London. I teach children and adults how to ferment food and beverages, drawing on my first-hand experience of communal fermentation growing up in the Balkans and my macrobiotic training that covers a variety of Japanese ferments.
My wheel-thrown and hand-built ceramics are inspired by my food meanderings and each cup/pot is unique.
I look at food practices across the world and adopt and adapt them to suit our busy lifestyles. But there are some things that take time. Like developing probiotic rich food through slow fermentation. Taking time to make your food. Waiting for the clay to dry. Glaze and fire. I am passionate about how little changes in our daily diet can bring a positive transformation to our health and how we feel. I combine the latest research of how fermented foods can help improve our gut and overall health with my heritage knowledge of how to make them.
I set up my hands to perform. Pottery and fermentation.

www.oblutak.co.uk

MERCEDES VILLALBA
Mercedes Villalba writes poetry and nonfiction, mostly about nature, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Davis, where she researches art and landscapes in the energy transition. She is the author of “Fervent Manifesto” (2019) and “A las Plantas” (2022). She studied Anthropology at the Universidad Nacional de San Martín in Buenos Aires and at The New School for Social Research in New York and has published articles, poems, translations, and essays in Spanish and English. Every once in a while she makes zines and small-run prints. Her ‘Fervent Manifesto’ was translated into Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalá.
Photo by Catalina Bartolomé

www.mpvillalba.hotglue.me

SEAN ROY PARKER

Sean Roy Parker is a food writer, fermentation enthusiast and visual artist based at DARP co-living project in Shipley, Derbyshire (UK). In his ongoing project *Fermental Health* he writes essays about and leads workshops on the lifecycle of materials, complexities of interspecies responsibility, and problem-solving through collaborative action. He practises slow and low-tech crafts using leftover consumer debris and natural abundances in anticipation of the post-capitalist world, and redistributes resources through flexible care structures like labour exchange, favours and artswaps. Sean Roy has delivered public research projects on fermenting with microbes for Liverpool Biennial (UK), anarchist solidarity with peasant farmer at Pols (Spain), and recently returned from a two-month residency at NART (Estonia) where he was artist-gardener at Kreenholm Plants and taught himself basic carpentry.
Image by Jelizeveta Kuznetzova at NART, Estonia.
@fermental_health

CAROLYN STEEL

Carolyn Steel is a leading thinker on food and cities. She is the author of the award-winning Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives (2008) and Sitopia: How Food Can Save the World (2020). Her concept of sitopia, or food-place (from the Greek sitos, food + topos, place) has gained broad recognition across a wide range of fields in design, ecology, academia and the arts.
Carolyn studied architecture at Cambridge University with Dalibor Vesely, Peter Carl and Eric Parry and subsequently taught with all three before running her own design studios at Cambridge and at London Metropolitan University.
In 1998, Carolyn became the inaugural Studio Director of the London School of Economics Cities Programme. She began researching the relationship between food and cities in 2000, and from 2002-2012 gave a lecture series on Food and the City at Cambridge University School of Architecture, the first of its kind. In 2008 she published her first book, Hungry City, which won the Royal Society of Literature’s Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction and was chosen as a BBC Food Programme book of the year. In 2009, The Ecologist magazine profiled Carolyn as a ‘21st Century Visionary' and her 2009 TED talk, given at the first TEDGlobal in Oxford, has gained more than one million views.
In international demand as a speaker, she has lectured widely on food and the city, including at the Slow Food University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy and the Harvard Graduate School of Architecture.

LAURA WILSON

Laura Wilson (b. Belfast, Northern Ireland, lives & works in London) is interested in how history is carried and evolved through everyday materials, trades and craftsmanship. She works with specialists to develop sculptural and performative works that amplify the relationship between materiality, memory and tacit knowledge.
Wilson’s interdisciplinary and research-based works have been exhibited widely including at: The Collection, Lincoln with Mansions of the Future, UK; First Draft, Sydney, Australia (2021); 5th Istanbul Design Biennial – Empathy Revisited: Designs for More than One; Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Norwich, UK (2020); The British Museum, London, UK with Block Universe; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, UK; and The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London, UK (2018); SPACE, London, UK; V&A Museum, London, UK; and Invisible Dust at Hull and East Riding Museum, Hull, UK (2017); Delfina Foundation, London, UK (2016 & 17) Site Gallery, Sheffield, UK (2016); Whitstable Biennial, UK (2014); Camden Arts Centre, London, UK and Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK (2013); W139, Amsterdam and De Warande, Turnhout, Belgium (2012).

www.laurawilson.me

FOOD COSMOGONIES 2020-21

Food Cosmogonies ARCHIVE
2021-22

Food Cosmogonies is a reconceptualising of the world through food. Founded in 2020 by The Gramounce as an 8-week course, initially hosted by The Institute of Postnatural Studies, in 2021 Food Cosmogonies became a fully independent educational platform, extending over one academic year. Across 30 sessions, Food Cosmogonies re-examines a wide range of cultural and sociopolitical phenomena through the lens of food, considering the intrinsic links between what/how we eat and who we are.

Food Cosmogonies 21/22 participants: Julia Coma Vilarasau, Laura Hoyos, Céline Pelcé, Julia Walk, Reed H. Reed, Noa Jansma, Andrea Siso Corrales, Suzanne Bernhardt, Anna Jurgielewicz, Erika Barbieri and Henrik Olssøn, Ana Escariz Pérez, Kelly Stefanski, Lola Carbonell, Amanda B Novoa, Maria Nuñez, Selina Reuherz, Julia Ribeiro, Randa Toki, Priya Jay, Celia Ortiz, Eliza Ackland, Rain Wu, Sebastian Varra, Beatriz Paz and Zoë Heyn-Jones.

Guest Speakers 2021-22