Founded in 2017 in Vevey, Switzerland, foodculture days' mission is to share knowledge and know-how around food through multidisciplinary projects such as exhibitions, interventions in public spaces (performances, displays, projections, cultivation, ...), podcasts, publications, workshops and collective meals open to all with the wish to support environmental and social justice. The platform also conducts field research phases and lauched in Septembre 2023 an editorial project called Boca A Boca. These moments of encounter and ongoing exchange culminate in a biennale organized in the same city.
Its vision is to explore the intersection between art and ecology, to (re)discover the multiple meanings and functions of food in daily life, as well as the tangible or imperceptible impact of our choices on the global environment. At a time when ecological and social issues affect an ever-increasing number of living organisms, foodculture days brings together artists, scientists, farmers, cooks, winemakers, anthropologists, philosophers, activists, ecologists, gardeners, local experts, elders and other types of intelligences (vegetal, mineral, animal, fungal, bacterial). As cultural producers, they all engage with food as a research subject, a medium, a material, a way to connect with our environnement and/or a tool of resistance.
Every two years, foodculture days re-emerges in the town of Vevey to organize an art biennale, which represents its main project and the momentum of two years of reflection, gathering and dialogue with its community of practice. Thus, foodculture days apprehends global topics rooted in a local context and in dialogue with the region aswell as its inhabitants. During ten days, the biennale allows the public to rediscover the urban space and everyday locations (markets, streets, cafes, shops, ...) from an audacious and poetical perspective. As a fundamental ritual of life, the act of eating is approached through the specificities of each field of expertise. The biennale’s program is based on boldness, critical thinking, and openness, to which foodculture days is committed, accordingly applying the values of diversity, sustainability, and accessibility for and towards all.
By practicing radical hospitality, foodculture days invites a transgenerational audience to connect and engage in urgent issues, such as our relationship with nature, soil's narratives, seeds and access to resources (water, land, air), cultural identity and the notion of the terroir, the narratives stemming from migration; collective memory and the production of knowledge, as well as questions concerning the value of traditions or technology within experiments of more holistic futures.