The project offers an alternative artistic-educational socio-economic hands-on experience, focusing on local food community economies, in Malta, in collaboration with primary school students, a team of organic-regenerative farmers, and a group of creatives. The students and their families are introduced to the Farm to Fork Strategy, so as to collectively create a healthy savoury snack, whereby the students are involved in all the design thinking process and all stages of the supply chain.
National
Malta
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It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As an individual
First name: Kristina Last name: Borg Gender: Female Nationality: Malta Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: 39/2, Ortensja Court, Brunzar Street Town: Santa Venera Postal code: SVR1255 Country: Malta Direct Tel:+356 7931 3567 E-mail:borgkristina@gmail.com Website:https://www.kristinaborg.com
Through research and creative practice, You Are What You Buy (YAWYB) provokes and reacts to current issues of production, shopping and consumption, offering alternative artistic and socio-economic experiences. The third and current edition of YAWYB – Reap What You Sow – presents an alternative artistic-educational initiative that researches local food community economies in Malta. The project sees artist and arts educator Kristina Borg collaborating with primary school students, a team of organic-regenerative farmers, a green and fair organisation, a Circular Economy advisor, a branding designer and authors/poets.
The project does not aim to reinvent the wheel, but to find gaps, support and scale up what already exists locally, and thus help to reframe the system. This approach, of building other worlds with what is at hand, also refers to the vision of Community Economies, founded by J.K. Gibson-Graham, that opens up the understanding of ‘the economy’ as comprising diverse economic activities, aiming for more ethical economic practices that acknowledge and act on the ongoing interdependence of all life forms, human and more-than-human.
In order to unpack such notions, the students and their families are introduced to the Farm to Fork Strategy, put forward by the European Green Deal, to collectively create a healthy savoury snack – dehydrated local, seasonal root veg chips, seasoned with herbs. The students are participating in every step of the learning process; thus, in all the steps of the supply chain. They are involved in the production stage by sowing and harvesting crops in an organic-regenerative way, in the processing stage by solar/oven dehydrating the veg and the herbs while examining the different shapes, textures, colours, tastes and smells, in the storage and distribution stage, including branding design and creative writing to promote their product.
This pilot phase is supported by Arts Council Malta through the Arts Education scheme.
artistic activism
local community economies
agriculture
transdisciplinary co-creation
storytelling
Malta, with a population of just over half a million across an area of only 316 km2, is currently facing a crisis of overdevelopment where the very few green spaces left are constantly destroyed, replaced by more concrete. This threatens natural land and the future of agriculture. For this reason, the project opted to collaborate with farmers who not only utilise organic methods, but, regenerative practices too. Many of the locals have little to no relationship with natural resources, with children having no open spaces where to play and explore. Thus, the project aims to restore and reinstill this relationship within the students as the future generations of society, while also recognising the beauty of an interdependent relationship between human and more-than-human.
Another objective is to experience this through a direct, hands-on approach, where the students and their families can analyse better the challenges of agricultural work, especially within the context of climate change, connecting also to fair and ethical consumption. This further allows for a better recognition of the importance of food sovereignty, also within the pandemic and war context, and this is why the project is addressing local and seasonal food. The project embeds this learning journey within a circularity mindset, encouraging closing the loops, such as exchanging waste as resource and implementing the advantages of renewable energy sources.
Bringing all this together, the ultimate objective is to put into practice a local food community economy, where the students are also encouraged to recognise what is already taking place on a local level, support it and help it to thrive. Simultaneously, the objectives also address the longevity and sustainability of the project. Once the methodology is mastered, the plan is to take the pilot forward, with the aim of bringing system change that generates not just economic capital, but also regenerates natural, social and cultural capital.
Inspired by the Arte Útil concept, the initiative believes that arts education is not an isolated domain, on the contrary, it is part of a wider and larger context where different fields of knowledge are interdependent. Arte Útil, originally put forward by Cuban artist and activist Tania Bruguera in 2013, roughly translates into English as ‘useful art’ but it actually goes beyond the concrete and beneficial outcome that art produces. It further draws on artistic thinking to imagine, create and implement tactics that catalyse social change. Drawing on Bruguera’s belief, the initiative considers aesthetics as a transformation process, whereby the beauty of ethics is generated through the process of working through and with change. In this context, the project thus asks: How can arts and creative education be forward-looking? How can we widen the parameters of what constitutes arts education in the local/national culture, moving beyond mainstream approaches? How can we enroll and apply art practices in creating ‘other worlds’?
Despite creating and producing an edible product – both as an art object and a consumable – is one of the project’s objectives, emphasis is placed on the learning process and on the artistic and design thinking. YAWYB strongly believes that an ecological-centred and human-centred approach to artistic and design thinking can help us systematically resolve problems in a creative and innovative way – be it in our designs, in our lives, in our environment, in our businesses, in our countries. By supporting this artistic and design thinking with storytelling, YAWYB considers telling stories as an appropriate medium that helps people see what is possible in a context they can recognise, leaving greater impact. Indeed, the students will be telling their story through verbal narration when meeting their families during the final presentation, as well as through visuals (logo of product) and creative writing (slogan and short message of product).
The collaborating school is in itself a co-ed, inclusive school. In fact, the class of 25 students includes 50% boys and 50% girls hailing from different socio-economic backgrounds, different race, and different faith. The students also have diverse learning abilities, where some students are assigned with further support – a shared or individual (depending on the specific needs of the student) Learning Support Educator (LSE). The LSEs always accompany and support their students for every session that is part of the project – be it in class or outdoors at the farmers’ fields. The initiative is available and accessible for all, irrespective of the diverse needs encountered, while also catering for adaptions if/when required. This also forms part of the ethical beliefs of project artist and lead Kristina Borg who advocates for Cultural Rights.
The project is being implemented with the support of Arts Council Malta and such funds are covering all collaborators’ fees and most of the production costs. Hence, the expense for the participating students and their families is very minimal. One expense which is covered by the latter group are the four field trip visits. Having said that, the initiative has been sensitive enough to spread these four visits across two scholastic years so that expenses are distributed across a longer time. In agreement with the school and the class teachers, it was decided that such field trips will be considered as part of the usual annual school outings. Thus, these were planned in dialogue with the class teacher, respecting the academic calendar. When the project is aware of any financial constraints that families might have, such field trip expenses are covered by the common fund of the school.
When selecting the collaborating farmers, it was crucial to work with young, male and female farmers as the project aims to challenge stereotypes, namely gender roles in governing systems, leading to new equitable societal models.
The protagonists are 25 students, aged 10 years. Adopting a hands-on approach, they are actively and equally involved in all processes, becoming actors and shapers of their lives, society and the future. Initially the students mapped out the journey of a mainstream product they bought. They were invited to draw a farmer to understand their perception of who a farmer is. This was followed by meeting the farmers in class discussing organic and regenerative methods of farming, before actually going to the fields where the students could sow, weed, plant and harvest seasonal root veg. The students also explored non-edible uses of root veg by creating dye from local organic beetroot. They also explored Circular Economy through a role-play card game, exchanging their waste as resource. The students also discussed fair consumption. The fairness activist guided the students to create DIY solar dehydrators using recyclable materials, leading to the very experimental phase of dehydrating local seasonal root veg crisps. Lastly the students will promote their product with the school community by designing a title, a slogan and a logo for their product, complemented with creative writing to communicate the journey of the product, highlighting the farm to fork story.
The families are at times invited to help with the preparation of the root veg crisps. They are also part of the social media page where updates are regularly shared. The latter also impact the wider public who follows the page, linking to the dissemination that shares the experience with civil society through blog entries and press articles. Lastly, the plan is to continue involving civil society beyond the end date, when hopefully the pilot evolves into a long-term post-capitalist economy. The impact is more long-term where communities can make more responsible and ethical decisions when producing and consuming. Potentially the project can also inspire the students’ future career and life-goal choices.
Firstly, considering that the initiative is based in Malta, the notion of local, regional and national requires some clarification, due to the small scale of the island state. For instance, the school is based in the capital city Valletta, forming part of the harbour region, however the school’s catchment area attracts students from all over the country. Moreover, the farmers’ fields are based in the North of Malta, which officially would form part of another region, different to that where the school is based. For this reason, it would make more sense for this specific question to consider the local/regional/national levels as inter-related, specifically when regarding the collaborating partners.
The main stakeholder, that is, the partnering school, has been involved right from the very beginning at proposal writing stage. The school offered the services of its education and creative projects coordinator with whom the project was planned and designed. This was crucial to address the school’s and students’ needs, which perhaps were not always foreseen by all collaborators involved. The school coordinator has been closely following the project all throughout and participating in the sessions too.
On a more national level, the initiative is receiving financial support from the Arts Education scheme of Arts Council Malta – the national funding body for arts and culture. This funding body is very supportive of the project, and flexible to any changes that the process requires. This is also achieved by assigning a monitor support who follows the project and meets the project lead on a regular basis. Such national funding is helpful to eventually pave the way for further dialogue with policymakers, on a national and European level.
Lastly, the dissemination plan through third-party websites, press and media portals will definitely cater for a more widespread share on a national level.
The initiative is informed by a variety of disciplines. Different art forms – visual, literary and design – collaborate towards the same objective of communicating the edible product’s journey. The arts are also integrating with non-artistic subjects. YAWYB integrates with science subjects, such as Physics, explaining the advantages of a solar dehydrator working with renewable energy sources. The school’s Home Economics teacher guided the students with safety and hygiene measures in the kitchen. Marketing is another subject that forms part of the wider picture, tying in with the branding design and creative writing. Ethics, highlighting responsible and fair production and consumption, is another knowledge field that informs the project.
Moreover, this project makes direct reference to agriculture, which as a term comprises both ‘agri’ – field and farming practices – and ‘culture’ – the growing and cultivation of the lifestyle and traditions essential to a community’s identity. All this journey is embedded within a circularity mindset – a contemporary issue that is highly advocated for in various social and political sectors, national and worldwide. Hence, this serves as context for students collaborating with artists, designers, authors/poets, activists, environmentalists, farmers and other community members.
All collaborators formed part of the planning and design stage, collectively understanding the resources and time required for each phase of the project. The team is primarily brought together through the project artist and lead; however, specific milestones require more collaboration and dialogue especially when objectives are interlinked. For instance, the branding campaign is managed by the school’s Marketing teacher, the branding designer and two authors/poets, thus communication between all is crucial to make sure that everyone is working towards a common goal. Such collaborations allow YAWYB to flourish even further on a more holistic level.
The project challenges and widens the parameters of arts education in Malta. Without undermining the relevance of teaching and learning conventional artistic techniques – drawing, painting, design and creative writing, which all form part of this pilot project – Art is much more than that. The project believes that aesthetics can not only render life more beautiful, but they can also lead to transformation. The students and their families are meeting artists who challenge the conventional notion of Art, artists who contextualise their work in the wider social domain. The students have the possibility to analyse why Art is essential for a healthy well-being and for a resilient culture and community. Art helps to narrate a story, and storytelling is a strong and powerful medium to convey a message. Indeed storytelling definitely forms part of the initiative, the students narrate their story through design, colour, shape, form and creative writing. YAWYB is integrating arts education as part of a transdisciplinary learning experience that interweaves personal development and growth with problem framing and solving skills, guided by a team of diverse professionals coming from the creative sector and beyond. The integration of socially engaged art, visual and literary arts, activism, environmentalism, economics and business can open up unexpected potential for student development as the future actors, shapers and contributors to society. The students regularly toggle their focus by learning about themselves, their peers and the more-than-human life forms. This shifts focus from ‘ME’ to ‘WE’, and thus to the ‘MANY’, where the students have the possibility to realise how art can be made by many, by groups/collectives/movements of artists who are in connection with their surroundings. This shows that arts education is not an isolated domain. Art is a collaborative process, and using food as the medium helps the students to unpack such practice.
The current initiative is planned as a pilot project which started in March 2022 and ends in June 2023. Replicating and transferring the process is already in mind as the plan is for the pilot phase to evolve into a long-term postcapitalist economic practice (after June 2023), exploring diverse economy approaches, such as setting up a social cooperative or similar. In this scenario, the options are varied. The methodology can be replicated with other students of the same age or older. In the latter option, the process and objectives remain the same but the tasks can be adapted to cater for the age-group in question. The plan is to also open the non-formal education transformational experience to adults, whereby collaborating with NGOs could be beneficial. This could lead to forming a core team of people that will eventually help set up the social coop.
While maintaining the hands-on transdisciplinary methodology is one option, there is also potential to widen the medium/product by moving beyond solely root veg and also include fruit or other produce. The pilot phase has provided a fundamental learning curve, highlighting the challenges that one could encounter when working with seasonal produce e.g. each season and respective produce always require its own experiments, thus time is a crucial factor.
There is potential to also export the concept by creating European collaborations. In this case, the main objectives of (i) reconnecting with nature through agricultural practices that champion local and season produce, fostering human and more-than-human relationships, (ii) adopting a Circular Economy approach, (iii) experiencing transformation through non-formal education leading to social change, and (iv) practising diverse economies that advocate for community economies will remain crucial, but certain adaptations in terms of medium/product and methodology would be required as per the place, climate and context in question.
The initiative is based on a transdisciplinary hands-on approach, whereby arts education is integrated as part of a transdisciplinary learning experience that interweaves personal development and growth with problem framing and solving skills, guided by a team of diverse professionals. At the baseline of the hands-on learning experience there is also an element of research, that is, researching the implementation of local food community economies. This includes a mix of academic and practical research.
In the case of academic research, the project artist and lead, Kristina Borg, has been informing and upskilling herself from a theoretical perspective for the past year and a half, by reading key texts published by the Community Economies (CE) Institute, engaging in conversation with the international Community Economies Research Network, which Kristina forms part of, as well as following professional development related to this knowledge field.
As for the practical research, the project is putting into practice a case study of local food community economies by using qualitative transdisciplinary methodologies. The aim is to have the students learning by doing throughout every milestone (listed in one of the questions below), merging experiences and knowledge from diverse fields (discussed in one of the questions above). This allows the students to focus more on the objectives, rather than on compartmentalised individual subjects. The process is helping the students to learn how to embrace uncontrolled situations and potential failure (induced by bad or change in weather, lack of harvest, undesirable results in the dehydration process) and how to solve such failures.
YAWYB believes that small actions can initiate major and system changes, especially when executed in a context that communities can recognise. The initiative plans to first connect with the local/national, so that it can then network with similar European and global experiences.
By offering the opportunity to reconnect with nature through a hands-on approach, the initiative is restoring the relationship between the human and the more-than-human. This challenges issues of over-development, road widening and the car culture, and private investments not in the best interests of the communities. In doing so, the project adopts organic and regenerative agricultural practices which can help regenerate land while having less impact on the environment, thus addressing the climate change crisis, connecting also to fair and ethical consumption. This is further supported by more awareness of going local and eating seasonal, thus reducing the carbon footprint, while also addressing the importance of food sovereignty as highlighted during the Covid-19 pandemic and the current Russian invasion of Ukraine. The circularity mindset on a local level, such as exchanging domestic organic waste as a resource for farmers, and using renewable energy sources can further help close the loops.
By challenging the parameters of what constitutes arts education on a national level and by exploring knowledge through a transdisciplinary method, the project generates a more equitable and quality education for all without discrimination on the basis of gender, race, faith or socio-economic background.
Once the experimental methodology of the project is mastered, namely the dehydration process feeding into a proper production, the plan is to draw a list of recommendations that can be presented to authorities and policymakers within relevant government and European departments, namely, heritage and the arts, education, environment and climate change, agriculture, food and animal rights.
The development plan (March 2022-June 2023), highlighting the key milestones of the project’s progress:
1. INTRODUCTORY SESSIONS by shopping at a grocery store to map out the journey of the bought product; drawing a farmer to analyse students’ perceptions. The shopping allowed some students to gain basic skills – some had never gone shopping on their own; one must keep in mind the prior C-19 lockdown and distancing measures which greatly affected children’s social maturity. Regarding the drawing exercise, results included 50% female farmers; students identified themselves as farmers when drawing.
2. BECOMING FAMILIAR WITH FOOD by meeting the farmers; by role playing through a card game about Circular Economy. The students found the exchanging waste as a resource through role play quite abstract. This is something that is constantly revisited through different means.
3. PRODUCTION INITIATION including hands-on field trips; creating DIY solar dehydrators. The students gained more knowledge about the different types of veg, how these grow, how interconnected nature is and how not to feel intimidated working in a field.
4. PROCESSING by experimenting with solar/oven dehydration of root veg chips seasoned with dried herbs. This is equipping the students with various skills: peeling/slicing veg, identifying veg/herbs through shape, texture, smell and taste activating a multisensory analysis.
5. BRANDING CAMPAIGN by creating a title, a logo and slogan for the product, including a short message that conveys the product’s journey.
6. SHARING with the wider school community and the students’ families, sharing the projects’ achievements and challenges encountered.
Overall, the project is challenging conventional educational methodologies. This becomes clear through the reactions of some adults (educators and families) who seem to panic when the task is open, rather than having a fixed right or wrong answer.
The initiative was developed after prior research that focused on the impact of the C-19 pandemic on our production, shopping and consumption habits. Hence, the project responds to and provokes current issues that are relevant to the local context.
The students are actively involved in all steps of the process, adopting a transdisciplinary hands-on approach. This embodies sustainable values by supporting ethical and fair choices (e.g. respect for the more-than-human, right pay for the farmer, going local) while promoting the reconnection with nature through sowing, planting, weeding and harvesting. The initiative also aims to equip the students with critical and design thinking skills that could help reframe problems and find solutions, leading to system change for a sustainable future. The project also acknowledges the importance of collaboration whereby the individual is placed on par with the collective.
These elements are also reflected in the initiative’s implementation, such as going paperless (or reducing it as much as possible), using eco-friendly products such as plant-based sunscreen when going to the fields, plant-based dishwashing liquid soap, biodegradable washing-up pads and providing a fair wage to all collaborators. These are discussed with the students, e.g. it is explained why we’re using the specific plant-based sunscreen; this allows the project to integrate sustainability across all aspects of implementation with the hope that this will become an innate and natural attitude. Through this non-formal educational approach, the students gain knowledge, skills and attitudes that promote new ways of thinking while acting with fairness and responsibility in empathy for all beings alike, human and more-than-human.
The fact that the project is receiving national funds allows the funding body to invest in green and sustainable measures, with the possibility of opening up political discourse.
