Description

Temporary Spaces, Edible Places: Vancouver (2015) explored issues of local food production in Vancouver through a participatory mapping and performative picnic hosted inside an inflatable structure to engage picknickers in a critical dialogue regarding food production’s interconnection to globalized colonial and capitalist systems of control and displacement.

The handmade inflatable dome became a temporary space outside the Contemporary Art Gallery’s Burrard Marina Field House for this public picnic considering Canadian colonial narratives via a consideration of Canadian food traditions.

The menu was developed through meeting with local chefs, food activists and local residents to prepare a ‘truly Canadian’ feast as a source for an afternoon of unfolding dialogue that was mapped directly onto the inflatable’s flooring. A starting point for the discussion was the ephemerality of the event itself – after the meal is eaten and the structure deflates, the temporary community was also dispersed.

Temporary Spaces, Edible Places: Vancouver was the first in a series performative events in Vancouver throughout 2015-16 exploring food culture as a metaphor for urban displacement as a larger project with Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver.