OPEN CALL: Food and Art Alternative MA presented by The Gramounce

The Gramounce presents: the Food & Art Alternative MA. This Alternative MA pursues the reconceptualisation of the world through food, reframing a food-scape reality where to develop an artistic practice. The programme is built on a desire to explore, learn and relate to food as a valid discipline in the arts, academia and other educational contexts. The M.A. departs from an understanding of food as foundational, the essential part of any world-building exercise. Through it, we aim to establish food and cooking as inherent signifiers of human culture. We believe that seeing-through-food is crucial, because food and its systems build the current ecological terraforming.

Structure
The majority of this programme is held online, in the form of lectures, guest speaker presentations, conversations and one-to-one or group tutorials. Once per term, participants are invited to join us on an in-person residency: ten days of practice-based learning and project development through workshops and creative exercises, held in partnership with The Institute for Postnatural Studies (Madrid), La Foresta (Italian Alps), and Medialab-Matadero (Madrid) where we will work towards a final exhibition.

Practical information
The cost of the Alternative MA is 2000 EUR per participant. The option to join solely for the online content, without access to the residencies or project development, has a cost of 620 EUR. The MA takes place from October 2023 to June 2024.

Course content
First term: Cooking in the Chtulucene. We begin with an unpicking and questioning of the Anthropocene, considering what it means to “cook in the chtulucene” (Haraway). As we move into the muddy terrains of “contamination as collaboration” (Tsing), we will enter the framework of the Postnatural.

Second term: Neurogastronomic Rewiring. We will investigate and unpick the concept of Neurogastronomy, examining our relationship to taste and its role in cultural, societal and political shifts.

Third term: Towards a Metabolic Planetary Kitchen. Departing from an unpicking and reshuffling of the prospects of our lives in cities and the food systems that hold us together (or set us apart), we end on the notion of “metabolic intimacy” (Donati) and consider what it means to strive for a practice of “Planetary Cooking” (Black Almanac).

Guest speakers
Include David Zilber, Rowen White, Carolyn Steel, Asunción Molinos Gordo, Charles Spence, Ole G. Mouritsen, Eneko Axpe, Eduardo Castillo-Vinuesa, Justin Wong and Black Almanac amongst others.

Applications
Applications are open and close at the end of March 2023, with participants notified by mid-April 2023. Applications are submitted through The Gramounce website. Apply now!