The Common Table

New interview at the Common Table with First Nations filmmaker and curator @cassgardiner.bsky.social about stewardship, reciprocity, the bittersweet aspect of "home", and how she uses food to open a window for non-Native people into her world and community. #reciprocity #sovereignty #stewardship

The Good Life — The Common Table Anishinaabe Algonquin filmmaker Cass Gardiner talks to The Common Table about how she uses food as a window for non-Native people into her world and community.

“What if the settlers had arrived and had agreed to coexist instead? I wonder if we would have had a robust, very cool food culture by now. Because they were so hell-bent on disappearing us, we never got that cross-cultural exchange and an evolution of what American food truly could have been.”

Risoprint illustration of two blackbirds playing with a carrot and two other birds forming the letter C with their bodies.

“One day, while watching them, I thought: what if these birds could cooperate and create their own alphabet?”
A multi species food alphabet by @curly_mads.

thecommontable.eu/wild-birds-f...

#thecommontable #curlymads #wildbirds #wildbirdsalphabet #pictoplasma #foodalphabet #risoprint

Risoprint illustration of birds and nuts and two birds forming a letter N with their bodies.

“Every morning, I visit a large urban park near my home to watch birds.” artist @curly_mads tells the story of herWild Birds Food Alphabet.

thecommontable.eu/wild-birds-f... Wild Birds Food Alphabet — The Common Table

#thecommontable #curlymads #wildbirds #foodalphabet #pictoplasma

Change The (Design) System — The Common Table A conversation with Systems Change Designer Ashley Scarborough about how she redesigned her own professional path and found food systems as her medium.

We invited Systems Change Designer Ashley Scarborough to The Common Table to share how she redesigned her own professional path and found food systems as her medium.

We need to talk about 'Food Design': What is it and can it improve our relationships with food, individually or on a global scale? - Oxford Food Symposium Agriculturalists, economists, chefs, politicians & policy makers, and educationalists & educators have ‘solutions’ relating to improving the food system. Unfortunately, many have fallen flat, and we c...

Adjust your preconceptions about Food Design by joining the Oxford Food Symposium Kitchen Table panel talk online with the founders of The Common Table and others here tomorrow May 13th 6pm CEST on Zoom

A Game Of Monopoly — The Common Table We talk to Canadian political economist Jennifer Clapp about her latest book, “Titans of Industrial Agriculture” and the evolution of an extreme concentration of power that has allowed 12 companies to...

If you want to understand how we ended up in this mess, you go to an expert.
The Common Table talked to political economist @jennifer-clapp.bsky.social about her banging new book: "Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters".

Just as we understand individual ingredients, like apples or crisps, to be expressions of systems, The Common Table is an expression of a system initiated by studio_lovell. It is designed to be a hospitable space for learning to ask better questions.

The Common Table's founders studio_lovell were invited to co-design an immersive dining experience and give a keynote at the #HotelschoolTheHague for their Future of Food course in Amsterdam. We talked about learning to ask better questions & understanding ingredients as expressions of systems.

Ancient Grains and Other Myths, an interview with Aterraterra at The Common Table. #aterraterra #thecommontable #colonialism #artandagriculture #foraging #heritage #taste #graniantichi #sementielette #ancientgrains #ethiopianredaubergine Image © Filippo Nicoletti, courtesy Aterraterra.

Ancient Grains And Other Myths — The Common Table The interdisciplinary work of Aterraterra intersects artistic and agricultural practices and questions accepted narratives within agriculture and food cultures.

Now more than ever it is so important to question the narratives we are fed. Our interview with Fabio Aranzulla and Luca Cinquemani aka Aterraterra, whose interdisciplinary work questions accepted narratives within agriculture and food cultures, just went online. We'd love to hear your feedback.

Scientists just created a biodegradable battery using mushrooms — and it actually works Researchers have created a fungal battery that can power small sensors, showcasing the untapped power of the fungal community.

Another agreeable Monday morning provocation 🍄

An enjoyable Monday morning provocation

UK soil breakthrough could cut farm fertiliser use and advance sustainable agriculture Research group says discovery could lead to new type of environmentally friendly farming

Game changer?

Reading list

The Capacity to Evoke at The Common Table
#mericoner #salt #cookingsections #climavore #onassisair #thecommontable #foodsystems #foodfutures #budakli #waterbuffalo #turkey Image courtesy L&B Journal

Food systems are emerging as a new focus of investigative cultural practice. The Common Table talked to curator and researcher Meriç Öner, former Director at Salt in Istanbul, who brings a unique perspective to the intersection of food, culture and art.
thecommontable.eu/foods-capaci...

ORFC Archive Explore conference material that we have gathered over the years including videos, presentations and summaries of the sessions…

The Oxford Real Farming Conference 2025 sessions are now online for everybody. There were some amazing talks. Well worth listening in, particularly Unpicking Food & Farming Misinformation, Is a Fossil-free Food System Possible and Roots of Resistance. 🌱🥬🌾💚

Seed sovereignty is a vital issue.

Embracing food thinking not only facilitates an accessible, inclusive path to understanding and nurturing thriving ecologies by building and maintaining healthy relationships, it is essential to survival.

Food is everything

One that is less causal, more entangled. One that is contextually aware, allowing for exceptions and the exceptional. 3/3
thecommontable.eu/food-thinking/

A non-binary approach that is adaptive, and embraces context, equity and equality, allowing for even contradictory interests of myriad stakeholders. One that involves learning to ask better questions rather than presuming to have answers. 2/3
thecommontable.eu/food-thinking/

What if there was a more inclusive way to approach the design process than “design thinking”? One that is based, not on “things” or “problems” but on building and maintaining healthy relationships instead? 1/3 thecommontable.eu/food-thinking/