It Starts With An Onion
A conversation in an immersive space with food
08/11/23
16:30-18:30
140 Carlton Vale
London NW6 5HE
DESCRIPTION
A workshop exploring the preparation of food and sharing of meals as a form of healing.
The power of a shared meal is something we recognise but often take for granted. So much so, that many of us rarely do it. For some of us, the more busy, stressed, and under pressure, we feel, the further we move away from that mutual moment.
Especially in the Western World. Each step away from the table brings new perceptions, or misconceptions; I’m a bad cook, I don’t have time, good food is expensive, I don’t think I want to try that, I’ll just grab something on the way…
But what if you sat at a table with a group of people you have never met, from all walks of life, some of whom have prepared the dish in front of you, and started to talk about food?
What if you found links through flavours and memories and what you do know about preparing and sharing a meal?
What if, together you created a recipe based on what you enjoy smelling, chopping, mixing, peeling, tasting, preparing and serving? Or what someone else you know prepares?
Come and join us at the table and find how easy your memories, culture, background, family and favourite flavours can bring a table together in creating new bonds and their own recipe.
Start with an onion…
BIOGRAPHIES
Dee Woods is Co-Founder of Granville Community Kitchen. She is a food and farming action-ist who advocates for good food for all and a just, equitable food system, challenging the systemic barriers that impact marginalised communities and food producers.
Dee’s work sits at the nexus of agroecology, food sovereignty, human rights, policy, decolonial research, community, cultural practise and spirituality.
An urban agroecologist/grower/cook, land elder and seed keeper, she is the co-founder of Granville Community Kitchen in South Kilburn, London, a previous BBC Food and Farming Awards winner and Slow Food Ambassador. Dee currently sits on the GLA London Food Board, and is a co-editor of A People’s Food Policy. She is an Honorary Research Fellow at CAWR, Coventry University in the People’s Knowledge Group, member of the Food Ethics Council, Chair of the Independent Food Aid Network, IFAN and Trustee of Sustain and A Growing Culture as well as Food Justice Policy Coordinator and a Director of the Landworkers Alliance.
Dee is a member of the LION – Land in Our Names collective – a founding member of the Global Solidarity Alliance for Food, Health and Social Justice and co-founder of the B.R.E.A.D Collective of activist/researchers and the African Caribbean Heritage Food Network. I am an advisor to the Farming the Future fund and FlowFunder with Be The Earth Foundation.
Matilda Velevitch is Founder of In the Mix. She is a writer and workshop artist. Her play, Three Mothers won numerous awards and completed a successful UK tour in 2019. Her own family background is one of migration, and much of her work concentrates on the effect of the human diaspora, communication and understanding through personal stories.
Past projects include “Fabric of Our Lives”, a series of 12 workshops in former UK Textile towns, bringing local and recently arrived refugee women around the table to create a collaborative piece which went on to become a touring exhibition. Broadway, an immersive photographic and storytelling project, celebrating hidden community spirit in an urban London through road. Coal Dole and Dinner Ladies, an immersive theatre project celebrating Dinner Ladies from a local school supporting the Kent Miners during the 1984/5 strikes. Sabir – Time, Tea and Textiles workshops in a Yorkshire Town – a reflection on the theme of waiting. This exhibition was launched in Yorkshire for Refugee Week, and remains in Harrogate as a permanent piece. In The Mix is a continuing project in collaboration with Granville Community Kitchen.
Bringing refugees and local residents in a deprived neighborhood, many facing isolation and uncertainty, around one table to prepare, cook and eat together.
Granville Community Kitchen(GCK) is an ethical, sustainable, culturally diverse community food hub, offering food centred activities, services, education and training that is accessible, family friendly and open to all. We place the most disaffected at the centre, co-creating a local response to social issues whilst building capacity and lifting voices to advocate for structural change at local, national and international level.
