On the second workshop day – Designing with More-than-Human Food Practices for Climate Resilience – we continued discussing and experimentally exploring sustainability challenges in food systems. Inspired by the fantastic(e)ating recipes co-created on day 1, we focused specifically on more-than-human food practices and their potential role in supporting sustainable food transformations.
Similar to the previous day, we used a shared Miro board pre-populated with various materials, including five pantries with examples of more-than-human food practices across five food system areas: production, procurement & distribution, consumption, processing, and disposal.
Working in small groups, we collaged proposals (recipes) for ways to plausibly embrace more-than-human perspectives in each of the areas. Participants also brought their boundary objects representing existing sustainability issues in all five areas that they placed on the shared Miro to kick-start the discussion.
Through four hours of collaging and exchange of food experiences, critical reflections, imaginations as well as boundary objects, we unearthed a rich variety of intriguing dilemmas:
• How can we rethink hierarchies in food systems?
• Why are non-humans not credited for their contributions to food processes?
• Can fermentation & human-microbe care provide a model for change?
• How would slugs design food policy?
• Doesn’t more-than-human also imply less-than-human?
The five recipes that emerged as outcomes of our collaging are diverse: you will discover a recipe for a floating urban platform of clover plants that promotes beneficial effects of invasive species on local biodiversity; a slug-based exercise in inhabiting a multispecies food policy position; a dreamy yet feasible garden restaurant for snails; and more. We hope our more-than-human food proposals will be digestible for you and will be pleased to hear your feedback!
