SITOPIA: REBUILDING OUR LIVES THROUGH FOOD
24 April 2020, 17:30 (GMT+2)
Online
On the occasion of the publication of Carolyn Steel’s latest book ’Sitopia’, we invite you to join online for a conversation with Sebastien Marot, in the context of the exhibition ‘Agriculture and Architecture: Taking The County’s Side’.
Carolyn Steel observes how food shapes many of the things that we do, our bodies, habits, homes, landscapes, cities, politics and economics. But we don’t see it, because it is too big to see – it is everywhere. We live in a Sitopia (sitos – food; topos – place), a world shaped by food.
Drawing on insights from philosophy, history, architecture, literature, politics and science, as well as stories of the farmers, designers and economists who are remaking our relationship with food, Carolyn Steel’s last book is a provocative and exhilarating vision for change in our urban and digital age. She invites us to imagine a “Sitopian economy”, an economy where food is valued for what it effectively represents in our lives. This reflection pleads for more slow food movement, local production and fair investment, a necessary reorganisation in a society where a new precept in trade would be adopted: “Feed your neighbour as yourself”.
Carolyn Steel is a leading thinker on food and cities and has worked with the practice since 1989. Her book Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives describes how food is key to the ‘urban paradox’ at the core of civilization, and her concept sitopia (foodplace) is gaining widespread recognition as a tool with which to address the dilemmas of 21st century dwelling. Carolyn is a visiting lecturer at Cambridge and Wageningen Universities, and has taught for a number of years at Cambridge and London Metropolitan Universities and the London School of Economics.