Context Report

During the Christmas period we had the task of writing up our 6000 word thesis outlining our proposed area of study for our final projects. My area concerns the role and operation of food within the city, the class inequalities that exist and  it seeks to explore the idea that closer relationships with food across a number of contexts bares the potential to cure many of societies ills. I have included the introduction for the project below.

Contents:

The aims of this report

My motivations as a designer

Introduction

In context

Historical context

The present food phenomenon

The demise/rise of cooking and engagement with food

The future of markets, food and the social

Community growing/futures

Futures scenarios

Jamie Oliver Ministry of Food

Fifteen

School dinners Sensitivity

The social benefits/Abrahams hierarchy of needs

Food, the body and the self

Summary and points for moving forward

Introduction

This project aims to utilise food as its medium, as a process to engage inhabitants of visually barren and malnourished areas of London. One only has to scour London, particularly its denser boroughs to evidence the unprecedented number of fast food outlets that it is plagued by, all allowed to be rolled out virtually unregulated, providing an accurate indication of a particular areas health. Children roam the streets after school with hydrogenated chicken and chips, boxes strewn over city floors, with many parents unable to cook, consequently making uniformed food choices much to the detriment of their lifestyles.

Solutions, on the other hand have materialised in relation to the knowledge void concerning cooking; solutions such as cooking schools, urban growing initiatives, organic foods are all available to those who can participate in them. An integral socio-group is absent from this injection of interest though, the socio-group which would undoubtedly benefit the most. The positive health, behavioural, and mental benefits afforded by a healthy and engaged diet are extraordinary, activities such as engagement in the cooking process, eating with friends and family, to eating healthily would seemingly benefit.

During a short documentary film I made, I interviewed a number of consumers exiting a branch of Sainsbury’s, I asked them if they knew the provenance of two of the items that they had purchased that day and whether or not they had any idea as to how it was made, 70% answered negatively having no clue which stuck me as highly Theoretically and in practice, healthy food and eating practices harbour the potential to remedy social ills on a vast and varied scale as my report will go on to explore, therefore I am making it my task to design within Urban environments interventions that use food and cooking as a medium to alleviate, inspire, educate and promote enterprise.