Together the participants shared in a day of action and reflection. We began by walking through the streets of Xochimilco, noticing the way the water shapes the city streets. We rowed together through the canals of Xochimilco with our feet planted firmly on the boat and hearts facing the direction we wanted to go. We participated in Tequio at Chinampa Tlazoltéotl led by Gaby Ale, as a way to hold reciprocal relationships with the territory and its community. Tequio a communal way of living and sustaining local agricultural practices. After this morning of work we were invited to lunch at Chinampa Amapola del Sabor with a menu by Amapola del Sabor a womens collective who are defending the Xochimilco territory through their food practices. We held a “Digesting the territory” tea ceremony and conversation, brewing local plants for tea and we set an intention to share our experiences of the day, reflecting on our practices, our concerns and the possibility for instituting otherwise.

We gave voice to questions about the role of art and curatorial practice in contested spaces and territories. We talked about our experience with working in spaces in which tensions exist between rural and urban, between cultural and ancestral practices and between spectacle and process. We exchanged experiences, failures, wishes, successes. The conversation was hosted in three phased “Lo propio (your own), lo ajeno (the other) y lo posible (the possible)”.

Cultural and curatorial platforms that joined: Chinampa Amapola del Sabor Chinampa Tlazoltéotl Cocina Colaboratorio Duapla Molcajete Hawapi Food Art Research Network Study Pattern Collective What Could Should Curating Do? www.foodartresearch.network

Video: Rubén Garay
Video editing: Pablo Chavarría Gutiérrez

Collaborators

Mariana Martinez Balvanera
Michelle Buerba
Biljana Ciric
Madeleine Collie
Grace Gloria Denis
Maxim Holland
Zoë Heyn Jones
Emilio Hernández Martínez
Diego Astorga-De-Ita
Gabriela Alejandra Morales Valdelamar
Adriana Cadena Roa
Beatriz Paz
Susie Quillinan
Alessandro Valerio Zamora
Elvira Valle Santana

“Tierra Sostenible” was a series of four gatherings in the context of the Politics of Food, Season 5 programme at Delfina Foundation, during the autumn of 2022. These meetings were part of an active research on transformative pedagogy and socially engaged art, which aimed to create a space to question and explore the interconnections between food systems and community organisation to unveil the political potential of contemporary art, in the context of the climate change emergencies and global crisis.

Over the course of the gatherings, participants took part in an open exploration of “enunciation” – a process to think through and name the causes we care about as a starting point for enacting local change. Together, we enacted micro food activism through the act of cooking, eating and sharing and developed a collection of formulas, gestures, and practices that went beyond the mind and connected with hearts and actions.

“Tierra Sostenible”, aimed at building a framework of action for social and environmental change inspired by the principle of Comunalidad. This concept, developed by local groups in Oaxaca, Southern Mexico, highlights the territory and collectivity as the centre of organisation to imagine alternative -and more responsible- connections to nature and ourselves.

By challenging and overthrowing current practices, and collaborating to create new ones, this space brought about fruitful confrontations, rich dialogues, and a wide array of flavours, sensations, and of course, food. The act of cooking itself triggered a sense of togetherness – it unveiled a necessary group auto-organisation. Picking, washing, cutting, peeling, heating the pans. As hands became active, so did the senses, sparking an unspoken type of communication. As the ingredients got warm, a scent of subtle trust invaded the space: we were getting to know each other beyond our usual categories.

Our embodied practices and knowledge spoke too, as we moulded the food with our individual understandings, whilst learning from the others’ ways. The resulting flavours, spices, colours, and plates reflected a combination of stories. Some offered locally sourced meals. Others brought narratives from distant places.

Yet, all revealed a communal effort; a glimpse of how powerful a collective can be. When the table was set, and the dishes were served, words filled our mouths before the food did. Joint discussions contributed to provide insights on how communality confronted ourselves and the group. By recognising each other and what we cooked, waves of perspectives, emotions, and ideas of action were articulated.

The group shared the realisation that change is feasible through exchange, negotiation, empathy, and awareness – that situated efforts can inspire a network of small, but cumulative, acts of resilience. Then, we ate. We laughed and tasted. We savoured the moment. In all its beauty, celebration is also a political statement:it is an enunciation.

This project was presented as part of the Delfina Foundation Politics of Food Residency, 2022. Supported by the Gaia Art Foundation. With special thanks to: Karen, Sol, David and Luciane from OmVed Gardens. Andy and Louise from Makeversity. All the Delfina Foundation staff. Viviana Chechia and Yasmine Sefraoui. Cameron Cook and Jay Lee.

Collaborators

Creatives

Emilio Hernández

Researchers

Daniela Sclavo

An exploration to visualize, archive and share the different layers of the biocultural heritage of Loma Bonita, Santo Domingo Tomaltepec and Xochimilco recently began to take shape. This exercise, called the Living Biocultural Archives, is a device that connects different ways of seeing and knowing the world through local biodiversity.

Throughout this year we will seek to co-create an archive of seeds, recipes, stories, objects and local landscapes, with the inhabitants of each community, which each one incorporates into their social life as a manifestation of their vision of the world. Although each process is developed from, in and for each specific site, it also serves as a strategic device to connect the three communities. In this way, the exchange of knowledge and know-how is promoted as a practice of community resilience.

The Living Biocultural Archive of each community is conceived as an organic museology: it is a participatory research tool, a device for exchange and networking; It is also a place for memory and its preservation, a window to recognize cultural diversity, the principles of reciprocity and above all the socio-ecological resilient practices within the confinement derived from the health crisis due to COVID- 19.

The materialization of the entire process will be a mobile device that will allow its apparition in public and semi-public spaces. This allows the project to investigate “collective making” from the limitations of the health emergency, through participation tactics that focus on interactions in open and safe spaces.

Throughout 2021, three Living Biocultural Archive devices will be built in each community. They will have the collaboration of key inhabitants, artists and researchers and different dynamics will be activated for the creation of their own content. Their designs and programs will respond to local forms, cultures and materials. Finally, during a presentation at the Luis Nishizawa Gallery in early 2022, the process of this archive can connect the three sites.

This project will be made possible thanks to the 2020 William Bullock Prize, USC Fisher Museum of Art + Patronato Fondo Arte Contemporáneo A.C. + Word of Clío A.C. of which he is the winner in 2nd place.

Developing strategies for climate action is more urgent than ever now it is evident that global politics are failing to take the necessary steps to realise the sustainability goals and stop global warming. Climate action to stop global warming is undeniably one of the most urgent topics of our time.

The Colaboratory Kitchen – Cocina Colaboratorio project was launched in 2020 as a PAPIIT project of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, a proposal to bring the knowledge from Universities and actors from different disciplines to three communities, to build upon different forms of knowledge joint actions towards sustainable futures. The search for local, national and global sustainability can be achieved by trans-disciplinary work. This model for co-production of knowledge towards sustainable alternatives requires: being located in the specific context and place, recognising the different world views, and promoting constant process of mutual learning through care networks.

In early 2018, Cascoland began a Colaboratory Kitchen (Keepers Lab&Kitchen) pilot in Chiapas, southern Mexico, in close collaboration with Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Just two years later, Cascoland and UNAM have developed a 3-year trans-disciplinary curriculum around this concept. The Colaboratory Kitchen is a project of action, co-creation, teaching and research in the search for fairer, more resilient and sustainable agro-food systems. The Kitchen is the heart of the project where daily encounters take place, initiating actions towards the landscape, the plot, the community, the environment. Creative practices, food and social the design of communication spaces are the catalysers for inspiration and exchange.

For 3 years, different actions will be carried out in three communities: Marqués de Comillas, Chiapas, Santo Domingo Tomalpec, Oaxaca, and Xochimilco, Mexico City. Marqués de Comillas, Chiapass, faces an accelerated deforestation of a diverse tropical forest, while in Santo Domingo, Oaxaca, the ancestral Zapotec biocultural heritage is at risk due to increasing globalization, and in Xochimilco, Mexico City, the impacts of urban growth are combined with ancestral agricultural roots and oportunities from the city. During the three years, new collaboration networks will be formed by bringing together local actors of the three communities with academics, students and professionals from different branches of the biophysical, social, humanities, artists, designers, and chefs to set a transformation in motion. These long term transformations will focus on deviating from the processes that have generated injustices and environmental degradation in these location. Collaborations between UNAM, the University of Wageningen (Netherlands), the international collective of artists and designers Cascoland, universities and national organizations, will contribute to the development of temporary and permanent communication spaces on the three locations.

The next phase of Colaboratory Kitchen was launched at a meeting in late January 2020 where the project participants met and exchanged the first ideas. The trans-disciplinary teams will be present at the three sites simultaneously between the months of February and April of this year. UNAM researchers and students, Cascoland creatives and other collaborators will work closely together to begin developing a new interdisciplinary form of academic work and research, mobilising local communities to participate and begin building and activating knowledge exchange spaces on the long term.

We invite you all to join us at the kitchen table!

During the time in Marques de Comillas, the Cascoland team traveled to 5 “ejidos” with a mobile kitchen table on a van. In each of the “ejidos” they searched for outstanding farmers, ingredients growing in kitchen gardens and knowledge of foods from the jungle. During this research connections were made with groups of producers, cooks, farmers and members of the communities that were interested in this culinary and cultural exchange.  

Cascoland asked three chefs to join their team during the pilot: Pau Ballesteros (Spain), Alam Méndez (Oaxaca), and Daniel Nates (Puebla). Each week, in each ejido, the chefs collected local knowledge, recipes and ingredients with which they cooked; interacting with different members of the community, some that acted out as our hosts for the actions.

Alongside our hosts, farmers and producers in each town, collective moments were performed as temporary kitchen labs. From the ingredients collected in each visit, recipes were created as a result of the exchange.

CASTARICA FISH AND PINEAPPLE CONSERVES

January 25, Ejido El Pirú
Chefs Alam Mendez and Pau Ballesteros

Ejidatarios from El Pirú decided to invest in two tanks of Casta Rica fish to kickstart a sustainable fish farm in the town. Pineapple is one of the local products, that unfortunately can only be harvested in december and april, yet grows in every garden of every house. The chefs Alam and Pau shared together with the community the knowledge to make pineapple conserves and exchanged recipes to cook the Casta Rica fish, that in the future could be served to their clients in Selvaje, the communitie’s own eco touristic project.

YUCA AND ORGANIC FARMING

January 26, Ejido Boca de Chajúl
Chefs Alam Mendez and Pau Ballesteros 

Only few farmers from the ejido Boca de Chajul grow their food in an organic way. These farmers however are ridiculed by other producers who prefer to use agro-chemicals in their crops, not only affecting the health of consumers, but also the soil fertility in their parcels and the ecosystems that surround them. During the project we created a platform to encourage those who stand out and decide to experiment beyond the traditional monoculture practices, that showcased their achievements to the rest of the community, and linking them to researchers that could help them evaluate different forms of sustainable management; in the future, the lab could create market links to their products inside and outside of the region.

GARDEN AND FIELD CONSERVES

February 2, Ejido Flor de Marqués
Chef Pau Ballesteros 

The community members of the Ejido Flor de Marques manage an ecotourism project, a camp site called Tamandua, as a joint effort to maintain a local economy that does not depend on the slashing of the rainforest. On request we dedicated the action to conserves, as the local conditions made it hard to keep fresh vegetables and fruits that were harvested from the parcels and kitchen gardens. To be able to offer something unique from the area to their guests at the campsite, for example the wild papaya, we invented all types of conserve recipes that would give an added value to the products that are consumed and served in this town.

STREET OVENS FOR FISH AND PIZZA

February 3rd, Ejido Boca de Chajul
Chef Pau Ballesteros 

Low-tech tools made by materials found easily in the area, open up opportunities to exchange foods and cooking methods in the street. During an action activated in the main boulevard of Chajul, we built on-site ovens and had an informal gathering with the bakers and fishers from the town. This central public space opened in a way to the possibilities of action and activation of different members of the community, who appropriated the street cooking.

KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE MARKET

February 5, Ejido Boca de Chajul
Chefs Daniel Nates and Pau Ballesteros

Researchers from UNAM and WUR shared their stories and visions with the inhabitants of Ejido Boca de Chajul, during a market which brought together all the actions that Cascoland had previously executed, adding new tools co-designed with individuals from the research group.

A station which aim was to evaluate the relationship between younger generations of the ejido and the nature that surrounds them and a mobile radio station where tools that were developed through the event. Chefs Pau and Daniel experimented with new recipes of green cacao in conserves and smoked organic vegetables.

AXIOTE, TOMATO CONSERVES AND ORGANIC PRODUCTION

February 14th, Ejido Loma Bonita
Chef Daniel Nates and Foodhunter

Researchers of UNAM and WUR have been researching the Loma Bonita since 1994. Since then they have developed experiments to monitor forest regeneration and landscape restoration in abandoned parcels. The community of Loma Bonita however, has low access to that scientific knowledge, which could help them to generate new ways of productive agriculture. In this action chef Daniel Nates and Viridiana Valerio from FoodHunterMx researched the potential of Axiote and kidney tomato, grown abundantly in the town’s parcels.

The Dutch collective Cascoland joins Mexican creatives, UNAM and University of Wageningen researchers, in generating communication bridges between academics and ejidatarios of the Marqués de Comillas municipality, Chiapas, in search of a social and environmental development for the area.

Visiting the jungles of Chiapas, Cascoland didn’t bring much more than a kitchen table. Together with local cooks the team prepared food, exploring a new culinary culture using locally sourced products, materials and techniques. In doing so, exchanging ideas on a more balanced lifestyle that reconciles food production with the conservation of the tropical rainforest and can help improve the quality of life at the border of the Lacandon Jungle.

The Marqués de Comillas municipality, located on the southeast border of the Montes Azules reserve, has undergone a drastic landscape change in the last 40 years; from the establishment of ejidos formed by communities from different states of the Mexican republic, which depend on agriculture and livestock for economic sustenance. For this reason, the region is of great importance to understand how to reconcile the conservation of the forest with the integral development of the communities that inhabit it.

The Cascoland project – Keepers Lab&Kitchen – aims to generate spaces for meeting, dialogue and knowledge sharing using food as a central element, staged by arts and design. As a starting point for a long-term collaboration, the group has formulated a first intervention: creating meetings between different groups working and living in the area around a mobile culinary lab using the kitchen table like the catalyst for exchange.

In January and February 2018, the 15 members of the Cascoland collective, half Dutch and half Mexican, made up of artists, chefs, architects, sociologists, designers and video-audio makers; carried out a pilot of the Lab&Kitchen, in which they visited 5 ejidos of the region. An ejido is a commonly owned self-organised farmed land. Marqués de Comillas is composed of different Ejidos, each of them managed differently, focused on different agricultural produce and with different culinary cultures.

Around the kitchen tables, sharing and cooking, stories were exchanged about local consumption, the origin of edible products, agriculture, jungle resources and culinary traditions in the area. The actions taken to the different ejidos are part of a collective work methodology, in which participation is encouraged through activations of public spaces that allow creative exchange. The kitchen table was used as a metaphor for the exchange of this knowledge, activating the collaboration between the different actors.

Different tools for communication were tested in these interventions, such as mobile radios, home kitchens, dialogue tables and a mobile print press for recipe books. These tools will be further designed in the long run for establishing a permanent Lab&Kitchen. In the future, these interdisciplinary communities will work together to build a location in Marqués de Comillas, where residents can be part of a program that allowing the design of new proposals for the regeneration and conservation of forests and a cultural and economic development of the area.

This project was funded by Stimuleringsfonds for Creative Industries, “Climate Action Challenge” by What Design Can Do 2017, and UNAM through the project Reserbos, INREF-FOREFRONT-WUR.

Collaborators

Local

Rafa Lombera
Communities from Loma Bonita, Chajúl, El Pirú, Flor de Marqués y Adolfo López Mateos

Creatives

Fiona de Bell
Roel Schoenmakers
Femke Bijlsma
Mariana Martínez Balvanera
Jesper Buursink
Bart Majoor
Szolt Kamaras
Elizabeth Guerrero
Abraham Soriano
Sara Perez
Bruno Ruiz
Michelle Ponce

Chefs

Pau Ballesteros
Daniel Nates
Alam Méndez
FoodHunter MX (Viridiana Valerio)

Academics

Miguel Martínez
Patricia Balvanera
Franz Bonghers
Thom Kuipers
Carolina Berget
Antonio Castro
Aline Pingarroni
Diego Hernández

Solutions and Knowledge are there. Design is needed to connect the theory and the practice. KEEPERS brings the connections to the table.

Dealing with the effects of climate change is not simply a matter of technological ingenuity or smart applications. It’s complex stuff. It takes good collaboration, on all levels, to actually trigger change. People with various perspectives need to connect. But it’s exactly that connection that’s missing.

In early 2018 the region of Marques de Comillas will be hosting the first KEEPERS pilot. The design and programming of KEEPERS will be shaped following Cascoland’s unique methodology: designing short-term interventions, tools for meeting and communication, creating public space, and collective moments. This way design works to bridge communication gaps, unlocking humanity’s potential to solve problems together.

Video produced by Cascoland for the Climate Action Challenge from  What Design Can Do, winner of the challenge for funding to develop the Pilot in 2018.

Collaborators

Fiona de Bell
Bart Majoor
Femke Bijlsma
Mariana Martínez Balvanera
Roel Schoenmakers