After a successful return to in-person programming in post-Covid 2022, Food Dialogues returns in 2023 with two weeks of events that connect, in diverse and nuanced ways, people and food systems across the city.
With events planned at the V&A Waterfront, Philippi Village and Langa, Food Dialogues 2023 seeks to foster deeper and broader engagement with our food system, through inter-faith dining experiences, chef-led culinary adventures, art exhibitions, walking tours, workshops and conference events.
Food Dialogues 2023 will introduce an online only conference event, as well as laying the foundation for Food Dialogues events in other African urban centres, thus creating both pan-African and global connections around our food systems. This is a thread that will gather momentum over the next four years as Food Dialogues seeks to facilitate greater cross-border food system engagement.
A key focus area in 2023 will be our food system in polycrisis. We are barely out of a global pandemic, and are now dealing with load shedding, a pending water crisis, the impacts of climate change and potential natural system shocks. How do we strengthen our food systems to face these challenges? How can the lens of decolonisation help us imagine alternative approaches? How do food businesses navigate ongoing periods of volatility, uncertainty and risk, and what future is in store for our food economy? Polycrisis as a theme will permeate all aspects of the programme.
The programme will open with The Polycrisis Pantry, a polycrisis dining experience curated and presented by food activist Zayaan Khan in collaboration with a local chef. Over multiple courses, invited diners will engage with the crises as they impact directly on our plates and in our bodies.
Where the 2022 edition of Food Dialogues looked at early childhood development and our food systems, 2023 looks at teenagers and food. How are teens experiencing and navigating their food environments, what is the impact this has on learning, development, economics and health? Expect cooking experiences for teens, and workshops on improving opportunities for teens through access to better food.
Dialogues through Food, the popular eating part of the programme, will continue in 2023 with a range of chef-led culinary adventures, where the focus is on food stories and the why and the where of our food choices, as opposed to the how. This series will include a cooking adventure for children and their parents. Makers Landing, Bertha House and other locations across the city will host Dialogues through Food events.
New for 2023, under the banner of Dialogues through Food, will be a dining experience focused on food, faith and service taking place on the evening before Mandela Day, helping to deepen thinking about what 67 minutes of volunteering means in the context of serving others and the needs of our communities.
The visual arts exhibition, initiated in 2022, will be expanded in collaboration with Langa gallery 16 on Lerotholi, drawing on their partnership with Everard Read.
And the Food System Walking Tours created in 2022 will also be continued.
Partner venues in 2023 include spaces across the V&A Waterfront, activist centre Bertha House in Mowbray, Philippi Village, 16 on Lerotholi Art Gallery in Langa.
Full details and to book for events at fooddialogues.info
SA Urban Food & Farming Trust 