Part of “Where is the Meal?” Event series.
This event explores meals in public as sites of conflicts. Parks and other public areas are important places for families, friends and groups to come together and share meals. This can be particularly relevant for people and, often, migrant communities who don’t have private gardens, for whom parks offer the possibility of socialising through their own cultural celebrations and food.
Public sites for meals, however, are also sites of conflicts, both within the users themselves and between users, authorities and neighbours. Particularly in cities, spaces for public meals are limited and heavily regulated. Due to space restrictions, a large amount of people tend to want to use limited sites which might lead to frictions. Different ideas of how to use these sites, the amount of group members, and food choices (such a uses of grills, of the creation of smoke, smells and noise) might lead to conflicts as well. Moreover, during COVID authorities reacted to the increased uses of such public spaces with further restrictions and closures. This was the case with the popular barbecue area in Burgess Park, which was initially closed during the pandemic to reduce risk or spread. The barbecues continued to be closed to avoid the risk of fire during the following very hot summer until they were finally removed by the council without prior consultation. This led to an ongoing local campaign to reinstate the barbecues with the support of residents, local organisations such as Latin Elephant and the project WeWalworth.
The event will take place in the new barbecue area of Burgess Park and will use the site as a starting point for discussing the value and challenges of public facilities for holding meals.
Date & Location
4th May 2024, 1-4pm
Burgess Park, on the grounds between Lynn AC Boxing Club (by Wells Way) and Chumleigh Gardens (see map below).
Register
Please book a Free ticket for the event via the TicketSource event page.
Guests
Valerie Rosa in the Migrant and Ethnic Business Organiser of Latin Elephant. Musician, interdisciplinary artist, and researcher. Valerie graduated with a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Puerto Rico, and also holds a BM from the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico. In the U.K. she graduated from a master’s degree in the Royal Northern College of Music. Furthermore she is a recent graduate from King’s College London from the faculty of Arts and Humanities, specializing in Ethnomusicology with a focus on Puerto Rico, the Caribbean and “Latin America”.
Valerie has had the opportunity to participate in community-led projects in Puerto Rico working towards the dissemination of Afro-Puerto Rican music and other student-led movements on the island. Recently in London, she works around different community radio stations where she advocates for public musicology.
Alex Rhys-Taylor is a senior lecturer in the department of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London and is a member of the Kitchen Research Unit.
His research looks at processes of social change in cities, with a focus on embodied experiences and change. His work has looked at the smell and flavour of cities and their relationship to gentrification, racism and multicultural formations. He is also also interested in urbane behaviours, etiquette and notions of civic virtue and is currently undertaking research into space, masculinity and leisure in cities.
More info
This event is part of “Where is the Meal? A Roving and Participatory Event Series on Food, Place and Communities. “Where is the Meal? is a series of five events responding to the question of how meals relate to place, and its cultural, political, technological and legal conditions. Each event is comprised of a meal for all participants, designed collaboratively by the event organisers and two invited guests at different places in London. Each individual event serves to both perform the topic of the meal, and engage the guests and audience into a relevant discussion.
