Drawing from a recent lecture by artist Gabriel Alonso, 23/24 Alternative MA participant Ines Barracha proposes a humble imaginary exercise, in which she pictures an orange tree as a fictional speculation of a future which is more sensitive to what Gabriel calls the “humanity of plants”.

Our editor in chief Barney Pau interviews founder of MOLD magazine LinYee Yuan. LinYee Yuan redefines food media by examining the future of food beyond taste.

Dora Tarasidou takes a look at artist Asunción Molinos Gordo’s project Campesino a Campesino, reflecting on the impacts of farmer-to-farmer knowledge sharing, mutual aid and decentralised food practices.

It’s early 2020, and a virus moves stealthily and indifferently across biological, social and media thresholds, seeping in like an amorphous fog. Suddenly and overnight, life comes to a standstill and passing time becomes acutely pronounced; decelerated.

As the summer draws to a close, our new Editor-in-Chief introduces the brand new Alternative MA in Food&Art at The Gramounce

In this Journal article, we will take a slightly different approach to our previous posts. Instead of focusing on the messages we communicate, we will take a look into their mediums of communication. The inspiration behind this comes from Food Cosmogonies graduate Elvia Vasconcelos, whose practice in sketchnoting reconstitutes the ways we understand academia.

In general, we humans can be decidedly anthropocentric. Historically, many of our religions have told us that the world is ours to use. Prevailing cultural narratives have tended to align with this extractivist idea; and concurrent capitalism continues to engender this maximal outlook, regardless of impact. And impactful has this outlook been. So much so, that it has been suggested that our current time be renamed, from the Holocene, to the Anthropocene.

“The Walter White of Fermentation”, Dr. Johnny Drain begins his Gramounce Expeditions seminar by posing the question: “What is food?” Though his query might seem simple, its brevity belies its complexity.

Gender is a form of classification. It is etymologically rooted in the Latin genus: meaning ‘birth, race, or stock;’ a term which also denotes taxonomic genera. As its etymology suggests, gender is a human construct used to delineate between beings by their biological anatomy. ‘Gender’ and ‘sex’ are often used interchangeably, though the latter more often refers to biological differences; whereas the former covers social and cultural differences, encompassing more than the binaries of ‘male,’ and ‘female.

Notionally; socially; ecological: ferments distil and incite; are radical and rebellious. They engender multispecies thinking; and inspire interspecies collaboration. ‘Ferment’ is rooted in the Latin fervere: ‘to boil.’ This can be seen physically, in the bubbles which our ferments release; just as it can be understood notionally. A ferment is a manifestation of change; of creating new forms from existing ones. As such, fermentation is a potent metaphor for how we might manifest ourselves.

From maddening fungi to patriarchal powers; and LSD to reproductive politics: the focuses of Diana Policarpo’s practice may at first glance seem decidedly disparate. Yet, just as fungi create complicated hyphal networks to metabolise their resources; she weaves her speculative transdisciplinary research into an intricate web of meaning: revealing her themes to be integrally entangled.

Through Justin Wong’s practice, the most complex of subject-matter becomes metabolised into digestible forms. From ingestion to abjection, his mind leaps between disparate topics so adeptly that, were it not for his diligent guidance, we’d be semantically adrift.

The Christian church has begrudged women ever since Eve first partook of the forbidden fruit. Despite—or perhaps due to—having enlightened humanity, women were henceforth subjected to the whims of patriarchy. Though this misogyny is not unique to the Abrahamic traditions, it is exemplified by the witch-hunts that wracked Mediaeval and Early Modern Europe. During this period, half of Europe’s population found its existence demonised in a practice of hate that still affects us today.

Asunción Molinos Gordo sees the world from a bird’s eye view. Viewed from above, landscapes become a series of patterns that help Asunción understand how the earth is used; a visual geometry that has shaped her practice. Yet, in spite of this lofty vantage, her perspective remains decidedly grounded.

How has eating etiquette shaped society? Barney Pau explores how rules and behaviours around the table have made us who we are - for better or worse.

Few foods are as foundational to our civilisations as grains. In our previous post So… why agriculture?, we explored how grains helped establish civilisation. In this post, we will examine one of these foundational grains: rice.

In a recent Foundations Seminar, the artist Céline Pelcé joined us to discuss her practice, and explain her innovative way of working with food. Céline’s approach to food is a practice in impermanence. We take a closer look at Céline’s process and projects.

In our previous post we explored how the last half-millennia of colonialism constructed our contemporary cultures, and food’s role within this. In this post we will look 10,000 years prior to examine how the development of agriculture facilitated this.

Most of the foods we enjoy today in the Western world carry a bitter after taste from our imperial past

Short summary of different cosmovisions around the around the world which have food elements embedded into their mythology