October 28–29, 2023
Locations
Museo delle Civiltà, Palazzo delle Arti e Tradizioni Popolari
Piazza Guglielmo Marconi 8
00144 Rome, Italy
Aula Giulio Cesare (Sala Consiliare di Roma Capitale)
Piazza del Campidoglio
00186 Rome, Italy
On Saturday and Sunday, October 28–29, 2023, the CLIMAVORE Assembly addresses the role culture can play in a transition towards food justice rooted in ecologically-driven action. Through a range of presentations, meals, debates and workshops the international gathering explores cultural and artistic tactics to operate in the space of food policy. The Assembly brings together farmers, artists, chefs, growers, cooperatives, hospitality businesses, researchers, cultural thinkers, environmentalists, civic leaders, seed keepers and policy-makers to reimagine the role museums and cultural institutions have as agents of transformation within the climate crisis. It takes place at Museo delle Civiltà and Campidoglio—the seat of Rome City Council. Key speakers include: Sepake Angiama, Casa delle Agriculture, Cooperativa Karadrà, Tommaso Fattori, Anne Immonen, Instroom Academy, Parviz Koohafkan, Frances Morris, Qanat Collective, Sakiya, and SERIT Seeds.
For more than a century industrial agriculture has created intensive systems reliant on agrochemicals to boost yields at any cost, claiming to feed the world’s population while disrupting ancestral ways of living within and above the ground. A metabolic rift has separated the soil from what it means to culture it, to grow food, to nourish the ground and human bodies. The CLIMAVORE Assembly addresses the broken food system created by intensive agriculture and the globalised supply chain, asking how to reconnect appetite with fields; and metabolism with the underground.
Climate struggles cannot be separated from cultural shifts, and cultural shifts require new forms of action. Initiated by Cooking Sections in 2015, CLIMAVORE is a research platform that questions how to eat as humans change the climate. As seasons creep, we recognise that eating less industrial meat protein, more locally grown produce or plant-based dishes is crucial—but perhaps not enough. CLIMAVORE moves beyond a carnivore, omnivore, locavore, vegetarian or vegan diet into a way of eating according to a season of drought, polluted seas or infertile soil.
As the aridity line that crosses the Mediterranean shifts, we invite participants to come together and envision new horizons. There are many initiatives, cooperatives, networks, platforms, and alliances already walking this route, but we see the need for this Assembly to reinforce the bond between culture and agriculture, and support growers in advancing agroecological futures.
Museums and cultural institutions from Europe and North America—the continents that have exported extractive agriculture for decades—now have the responsibility to repair human, plant, fungal or microbial ecologies worldwide. The CLIMAVORE Assembly hopes to provide a public forum to reimagine and debate the agency that culture has to nourish publics and public bodies together.
The Assembly builds on two fellowships from the Visible project, which enabled CLIMAVORE to lay the foundation for a long-term project in Italy. The first of which was initiated in collaboration with Locales. The Assembly draws on the experience of the Visible Temporary Parliaments, which, since 2015, have occupied city parliaments with socially engaged art projects to infuse new perspectives in democratic debates. Research for the CLIMAVORE Assembly has been produced with CLIMAVORE x Jameel at the Royal College of Art, London. As part of this research initiative, an open call for two one-year fellowships will be launched in the autumn to support projects that actively address food struggles in the new seasons of the climate crisis. Proposals must reimagine or implement future scenarios for spatial justice in the built environment. Guidelines on how to apply will be launched in November.
CLIMAVORE Assembly is promoted by Visible (a project by Cittadellarte—Fondazione Pistoletto and Fondazione Zegna), long-term partner Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation, and CLIMAVORE x Jameel at RCA.
In collaboration with Museum delle Civiltà of Rome, Roma Capitale, Gaia Art Foundation, Teiger Foundation, and Hartwig Art Foundation.
It is made possible thanks to the support of: American Academy in Rome, Academia Belgica, Real Academia de España en Roma, Germany Academy Rome Villa Massimo, and Circolo Scandinavo in Rome.
