Slow Food and Serendipity
During the early stages of the lockdown and pandemic, I started to use the slow food hub Birmingham to buy a weekly food shop and it has been a bit of a literal lifeline to myself and many JQ residents alike. Slow Food Birmingham’s aim is to actively connect people to the food they eat and the land it is grown on. Through local food projects, educational events, and shared meals, they champion local food, meet growers, and shorten the food chain.
Kate Smith, the organiser of Slow Food found out about my Threads project and initiated a meeting in early August for me to link with Gary - gardener at the The Hive, Eat Make Play, The Real Junk Food Project, Spring to Life, and Jo Capper from Grand Union growing project. All of these organisations have a similar goal in sharing food with local communties, teaching them to become self sustaining and fighting food poverty.
I’ve been invited to talk at the Food for Thought online event that will be held on World Food day. It’s likely that I will be doing a mushroom growing and cooking demo - like the one I had planned originally for the MA show. I felt really positive coming out of the meeting. When you meet a whole group of like minded individuals that share the same goals, to develop growing projects as a way of connecting communities, sharing experiences and conversations, suddenly those ‘speculative ideas’ become a real possibility, not just a pipe dream.
