Visual Arts | Performances | Architecture | Cooking sessions l Thematic meals | Screenings | Interdisciplinary dialogues | Workshops | Cultivation | Open access library | Mediation and Accessibility actions
Since its inception in 2017, foodculture days’ biennial of socially engaged art and practices questions our relationship to the world and supports plurality in all its forms. It is the main project of the eponymous platform and aims to be a catalyst for discussion and action through environmental and social claims. As a fundamental ritual of life, the act of eating is approached through the specificities of each invited artist, scientist, farmer, cook, philosopher, activist, anthropologist, gardener, producer, researcher, and local expert interested in food as a research subject, as a medium and as a tool for convivial interaction.
- The Territory | As a space for confrontation between local and global dynamics
Although international in its programming, foodculture days’ biennial is set in a specific territory - with its own geological, climatic, social, cultural, and political characteristics. Hence, the program is committed to giving a voice to local actors, not only from the cultural field but also from the agricultural and gastronomic sectors, notably through links and collaboration with the selected artists. It proposes a broad reading of this territory and of the tensions between the local bioregion and the globalized geopolitical dynamics, embodied by the presence of Nestlé's international headquarters in Vevey.
- The Commons | As an experimentation framework and a reflection on organization and social action models
Through its multidisciplinary approach, foodculture days’ biennial acts as a platform for reflection, exchange, and experimentation on social and ecological transformations. The projects developed and presented during the biennial represent opportunities to imagine models of organization and management, integrity, autonomy, and resistance in relation to issues of food sovereignty, sustainability, resilience, and collective responsibility.
- Artistic Creation | Through its potential and role in addressing social and environmental challenges
As a cultural and multidisciplinary event, the biennial places at the center the role and potential of artistic creation in raising awareness about ecological responsibility, social cohesion, and the imagination of possible futures, particularly through collaborative and participative projects. Combining ecological, cultural, social, health, economic and political issues, food serves as a poetic, metaphorical, and plastic material for this reflection.
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With the aim of offering a place for critical and accessible exchange, committed and sensitive, and above all fertile for collective reflection, the initiative invites the public to take part in the projects in various forms using the unifying power of food, in an alarming global geopolitical, social and environmental context.
The biennial ’is international in its conception and, simultaneously, firmly rooted in the Vevey area via its permanent initiatives and traces on the territory as well as via a strong network of artisans, producers, and local experts engaged for a fair, ethical and sustainable culture. Besides, it is evolving from an event lasting a few days (2017-2021) to a multidisciplinary biennial unfolding around the city of Vevey for 10 days (2023). More than 60 local and international artists and practitioners are invited to take part.
Convinced that art is a vector for emancipation and better living together, foodculture days aims to promote current artistic creation in all its forms and to make it accessible to all, free of charge.