Doors 9 Conference: Debra Solomon

Debra is an artist, designer and researcher on the impact of food in culture and the culture of food on her research blog

Participated in a project where growing food was a centreal part of the idea. “Grow your own dang food” was a restaurant in Amsterdam where she proved that you can grow your own food without having land, light or much time involvement. A tasting menu was available of sprouts and different kinds of mashes. It was also a way to illustrate where the sprouts come from. On the last day, she organised an Ikebana sprout contest.

She also helped curate an exhibition in Maastricht called Edible City which displays a number of “edible” architectural projects such as Dutch architect firm MBRVB creating buildings built on statistics. They discovered that to give a pig the best conditions, they built skycrapers for them , they have land and balconies and the methane that the pigs produce actually allows the entire structure to be sustainable from the materials and heating, to the food the pigs would eat.
In Los Angeles, the South Central farms used to feed 360 families but it was shut down, and because of it, the city scape has changed.
“Edible estates” is an ongoing work by a landscape architect who changes ornamental landscapes in edible landscapes.

For Dott07 , she works on the rejuvenation project on urabn Farming. They will work with existing orgs in Middlesborough to plant food to eat. Food suppliers have control over food production and they want to bring it back to a personal level and allow people to be in control again. They will then have a big town meal where the people will cook their own meal.

There is a Kinderkookafé where children prepare their own food and adults are only allowed if they are invited by the children. A 2 and a half year old friend of Debra invited them to pizza and made it herself.

He hopes that such signes can push people to reconnect to the food around them from a young age and influence the way children in the future will view food.