Hungry EcoCities

Hungry EcoCities aims at exploring one of the most pressing challenges of our times: the need for a more healthy, sustainable, responsible and affordable agri-food system for all.

Everyone has a right to food. But food isn’t about mere subsistence. Food is culturally defined.

What produce do we grow? How do we grow it? What animals do we raise? What do we eat? What do we throw away? And why? Who do we trade food with? Who do we cook for and eat with?

These questions illuminate some of the cultural dimensions of food. And responses are as multiple as there are different cultures and geopolitical contexts on Earth. Food is a phenomenon shaped by the cultures we live in and an expression of millennia of experimentation, innovation, and refinement. What we eat is evidence of our cultures.

For Hungry EcoCities, Studio Other Spaces will – in collaboration with State Studio, the Hungry EcoCities consortium, and a network of partners – focus our inquiry on local food cultures in and around Berlin-Brandenburg and their entanglement with global food systems. We believe that making existing food cultures and their networked roots communicable and known is a first step toward creating change both in terms of behavior and policies.

Concept

2023 Open Call 1, Humanizing Technology Experiments Residencies:

The first open call selected 10 artists. Their projects represent a convergence of artistic and technological innovations, which promise to inspire a more ethical, inclusive, and sustainable future for food awareness, consumption, and production.

The projects are:

- “Acoustic Agriculture” by Helena Nikonole

- “Culinary Journeys” by Jeroen van der Most

- “Ecoshroom” by Ivan Henriques

- “Food Dysmorphia” by Bernat Cuní

- “Future Protein” by IM-A Studio

- “Low Carbon Climate Cookbook” by Ling Tan

- “MVP x FFF” by The Center for Genomic Gastronomy

- “Symbiosis.AI” by Frederik De Wilde

- “Symposio” by Yiannis Kranidiotis

- “The Council of Foods” by Nonhuman Nonsense

2024 Open Call 2, Paths to Progress Experiments Residencies:

In the second open call, ten small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from the agri-food sector (call open from February 15 to May 15, 2024) and ten artists (call open from June through September, 2024) will be selected to collaborate. Working on AI-enabled projects and artworks for raising awareness, they shall aim at making the food chain more transparent, inclusive, and sustainable, at building connections between different stakeholders of the food chain, and at promoting more informed and sustainable consumption patterns.

The partners in the project:
Brno University of Technology (CZ)
KU Leuven Institute Leuven.AI (BE)
CRA – Carlo Ratti Associati (IT)
Studio Other Spaces (DE)
In4Art (NL)
Mendel University (CZ)
EatThis (NL)
FundingBox (PL)


Duration:
September 2022 – February 2026

About S+T+ARTS:
This Hungry EcoCities project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement 101069990. It is part of the S+T+ARTS programme. S+T+ARTS is an initiative of the European Commission to bring out new forms of innovation at the nexus of arts, science and technology.