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A provocative workshop about designing the future of food for BC and the Netherlands.

Climate change, population growth, world health issues, topsoil degradation etc. pose systemic risks to our global food systems. How can we use design thinking methods, international collaboration and entrepreneurship to create new adaptable food systems to withstand climate and socio-economical transformations? How can local food leaders in British Columbia and the Netherlands turn the existential threat of food crises into an opportunity for big and bold ideas?

Many thanks to Wilco and his team at Dunefield Consulting for inviting me to facilitate one of the tables. I had so much fun! They are doing some interesting research around sustainable food systems, see link below. And I am feeling a pull (and a new consulting contract with City of Vancouver!) towards investigating food systems and specifically the problem of food waste.

“Hope” was created by a group of Vancouver multimedia artists, in collaboration with First Nations and conservation organizations in response to the growing opposition to the northern pipelines. The art installation was set up in downtown Vancouver from Jan 14-18 2013, outside the Wall Centre where the Enbridge Pipeline hearings were taking place, as a means of representing the growing support for an oil-free coast.

Hope is a 7.6 meter long representation of a whale, made from recycled sail fabric and wooden ribs, surrounded by a dozen large water drops. It is an interactive art installation designed to allow anyone the opportunity to have a voice, to engage the public in a welcoming and inclusive way. This was done through physical means of inviting the public to write their messages of hope on the water drops and digitally through videos, images & tweets, which were projected onto the whale at night.

I was asked to create a series of graphics for print and web to promote the project during the Enbridge hearings in early 2013.

Nice article here about being with Hope at the Enbridge hearings in Vancouver > http://www.sierraclub.bc.ca/blog/being-with-hope