Our Commons: Food Resources

Our Commons: Food Resources [Harta Kampung Kota Kita] is a collaborative project between Labtanya (Indonesia) and Deveron Projects (UK) that discusses, re-imagines, and experiments on how our food resources shape urban/rural spaces, crisis, and community resilience.

 

Through a series of critical conversations taking place between October 2021 and March 2022, food resources have been discussed in relation to commonality, conflict and climate. We've been thinking about the past, present and futures of food through different aspects of ecology, its role practically in communities, and more broadly in our politics and history. The project was divided into three parts: 

 

1. Critical Conversation

This project element involved a series of intimate conversations around food resources and its relation to commonality, everyday conflict, and anticipating the future, connecting practitioners based in both Indonesia and Scotland via Zoom. Musician Lizabett Russo and Hayu Dyah Patria, a researcher and founder of the Mantasa Foundation, discussed how has our understanding of food resources and concepts of public and private space shaped our concept of everyday ‘commons’; Artist and educator Hussein Mitha and founder and chair of the Mosintuwu Institute Lian Gogali spoke about food and conflict, reflecting on ways in which food resources can be so much more than just sustenance, holding great importance in many traditional communities as a tool for solidifying collectivism and negotiating conflicts; Finally, ATLAS Arts' Joss Allen and president of the Bajau Community Abdul Manan discussed our varying connections and understandings of the natural world and considered how this can take effect on our food resources, 

 

2. Site Specific Project

Both Labtanya and Deveron Projects were developing site-specific projects together with each respective local communities. Throughout this partnership, both collaborators explored and experimented with ideas of food resources, space, and communities in their locale. In Huntly, the Home Programme of regular events became a site for global sharing, through a hybrid takeover of the monthly Food Chain cookery workshop. Jakarta residents and collaborators of Our Commons: Food Resources Andriana Bhayangkari and Marwanih Ariestut digitally joined participants in Huntly as they shared how to make the Indonesian dishes of Grilled Aubergine with Coconut Milk (Terong Bakar Santan) and Fern Leaf Aralia Salad with Grated Coconut Topping (Urap Cakra-Cikri). 

 
3. Reflection

An online public event was held which reflected on our creative processes and the knowledge we've shared and generated during this project. Reflection: How Fragile Are We? created a space to discuss how the concept of fragility is being perceived by both individuals and networks, and to remind us the importance of coming together to share learning and knowledge in both our global community and our local community. The plants that grow in Scotland are not the same plants that grow in Indonesia. The names that the plants, weeds, seeds have been given change from neighbourhood to neighbourhood. By protecting our own individual communities can we contribute to a global movement, away from capitalism and towards sustainable, community-focused organising?

This event will feed into a publication for the wider project.