The Creative Food Research Collaboratory
The Creative Food Research Collaboratory germinates collaborations at the intersection of art and food studies, exploring how the arts can imagine—and therefore help to achieve—food security, food sovereignty, and food justice in Canada and across the Americas.
The Collaboratory is currently based at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design (Vancouver, Canada), and was co-initiated in 2022 by Dr. Amanda White and Dr. Zoë Heyn-Jones with Research Associates Anahí González and Katie Lawson. The Creative Food Research Collaboratory foregrounds collaboration as methodology and seeks to cultivate networks and structures that will allow collaborative artistic practices and knowledge mobilization strategies around food issues to take root and flourish.
Our work includes curatorial projects, academic research, public events, teaching and workshops, as well as fundraising for community food initiatives. Our current focus is a curated publication series called Creative Recipes for Food Justice that pairs artists and research-creation practitioners with food studies scholars, food policy makers, and grassroots organizers to create “recipes” to address the most pressing issues related to food justice and policy in Canada. Volumes 1-3 were printed by Colour Code Printing (Toronto) recently launched at the Materia Abierta studio in Mexico City and will be launched in Toronto at Evergreen Brickworks in May 2025.
Our work is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We are members of the international Food Art Research Network.