Food on the Porch. A collaborative reflection for Venice Biennale 2025.

In April 2025 I was commissioned by the curators of the events at the USA pavilion for the Venice Biennale to design a moment of reflection around food, what it is, what it means, and its interaction with Design. Conceived as an intervention for the United States Pavilion at the 19th International Biennale di Architettura in Venice, it brings together an installation, a workshop, and a public talk to explore food as a deeply social and political medium. By activating the porch as a metaphorical and spatial point of gathering, the project invites people to linger, share stories, and reflect on how personal food experiences are entangled with larger systems. It is an attempt, through Design, to create a moment of hospitality and collective attention, and to see what might surface when strangers are invited to sit together, listen, and participate.

The overall project is titled "Food on the Porch" and the installation, workshop and talk took place between August 29 and September 1, 2025.

The project's objectives were:

• Foster critical reflection on the intersection between food and broader social, political, and environmental systems.

• Engage the public through storytelling and participatory activities that create personal connections to global issues.

• Activate the metaphor of the porch as a site of hospitality, dialogue, care, and community-building.

• Encourage intercultural exchange by inviting diverse food memories, traditions, and perspectives.

• Promote empathy and awareness of how food access and experience are shaped by inequality and power.

• Create a shared, co-produced outcome (e.g., collective recipe or banner) that symbolizes communal understanding and solidarity and that can live beyond the event itself.

• Use creative, sensory, and embodied methods (like mapping, sharing, drawing, writing) to deepen engagement and accessibility.

• Inspire ongoing reflection and action beyond the workshop, with meaningful takeaways or calls to action.

USA Pavilion 2025 - The Porch

INSTALLATION

Food On the Porch installation invites visitors to engage with four powerful themes: migration, food sovereignty, hunger, and activism. Divided into four corners, each explores a different facet of our food systems. "From One Table to Another" reflects on migration and food memories; "Seeds of Power" examines the role of seeds in sovereignty; "Empty Plates, Full Stories" highlights global hunger and access; and "Porch Protests" amplifies the voices of food justice activism. Visitors actively contribute by pinning stories, facts, and ideas, creating a dynamic, collaborative space that reflects the ongoing need for a just and resilient food system.

CORNER 1:  "From One Table to Another"

"From One Table to Another" explores migration through the lens of food memories. A large world map invites visitors to pin their migration journeys, connecting places with strands of wool. On the opposite side, a blank space prompts reflections on how migration has shaped food choices and memories. Participants wrote their answers on cards and pined them to the wall, contributing personal stories to the collective narrative. The installation highlighted the global impact of migration, with facts on forced displacement and food insecurity, encouraging reflection on how migration influences food systems and cultural connections.

Some Background:

Migration refers to the movement of people from one place to another, either within a country (internal migration) or across national borders (international migration), with the intention of settling temporarily or permanently. It can be voluntary, driven by factors such as economic opportunity, education, or family reunification. As of 2024, the United Nations estimates that there are approximately 304 million international migrants worldwide, representing about 3.8% of the global population. The rise reflects various factors, including economic opportunities, conflicts, and environmental changes. The World Migration Report 2024 discusses how food insecurity and climate change are increasingly influencing migration patterns, with many individuals moving in search of better food security and livelihoods.

Displacement is the forced movement of people from theirhomes, often due to conflict, persecution, natural disasters, or development projects. Unlike voluntary migration, displacement implies the absence of real choice. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) defines displacement as a condition in which individuals or groups are obliged to flee or leave their habitual residence to avoid the effects of armed conflict, violence, human rights violations, or disasters, without crossing an internationally recognised border (internal displacement) or by becoming refugees (cross-border displacement). In 2024, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR reported that 123.2 million people were forcibly displaced due to persecution, conflict, violence, or human rights violations. This equates to 1 in every 67 people on Earth. Displacement nearly doubled during the last decade.

Most of us move across the planet, whether by choice or circumstance, and in the new places where we arrive we are drawn into the local habits, the food, and the produce that define them. We bring with us our own baggage of tastes and preferences, the ingredients we know, the recipes we trust, the meals we have always been able to prepare. And in this new setting we find ourselves learning again, adapting, and slowly weaving the old with the new.

CORNER 2: "Seeds of Power"

"Seeds of Power" delves into the concept of food sovereignty through the lens of seed control and patenting. A tall panel explained the global dynamics of plant variety patents, highlighting the increasing trend of corporate control over seeds. A questions with multiple-choice questions invited participants to reflect on their views about seeds: whether they’re seen as a source of life, a commodity, or a tool for farmers’ rights. The space encouraged a deeper understanding of seed sovereignty and its implications for global food systems.

Some Background:

According to UPOV, the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, over 27,000 plant variety applications were filed worldwide in 2022, marking a seventh consecutive year of growth

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) reports that over 100 countries have granted patents for genetically modified plants or plant-related inventions.

“I describe what is happening as ‘food fascism’ because this system can only survive through totalitarian control. With patents on seed, an illegitimate legal system is manipulated to create seed monopolies. Seed laws that require uniformity, which criminalise diversity and the use of open-pollinated seeds, are fascist in nature. Suing farmers after contaminating their crops, as in the case of Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser, is another aspect of this fascism. Pseudo-hygiene laws that criminalise local, artisanal food are food fascism. And attacks on scientists and the silencing of independent research, as in the case of Árpád Pusztai and Gilles-Eric Séralini, are examples of knowledge fascism.” [Source: Article “Farming Free: An Interview With Food Sovereignty Activist Vandana Shiva” in Mother Earth News, April 21, 2014.]

Vandana Shiva is the founder of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology and the Navdanya organic seed net- work. She is a pre-eminent advocate for the preservation of food sovereignty, civil liberties and biological diversity. The author of almost 30 books, she also initiated the global Seed Freedom movement to organize events and celebrate seed defenders

To patent a seed means to grant exclusive legal rights to the inventor or company that developed the new plant variety, allowing them to control its use, reproduction, and sale for a set period of time. This intellectual property protection ensures that no one can legally produce, distribute, or sell the patented seed without permission, usually in exchange for royalties. While this system is intended to reward innovation and encourage further research, it raises significant ethical and practical concerns, particularly regarding the concentration of power in the hands of large corporations and the restriction of farmers’ access to their local seeds. It also obliterates the local knowledge surrounding seeds that have evolved in specific soils for particular climates, pushing a global standardisation where nature has shown that locality is key to effectiveness.

Prompt: Which statement most represents your thinking?

1. Seeds are a source of life and hope for the future.

2. Seeds are a means to produce food or make a living.

3. Seeds are a commodity or property that should be owned and traded.

4. Seeds are best designed by Nature.

5. Seeds represent the rights of farmers to save and share their knowledge and labour.

6. Local seeds are the key to protecting our food systems.

CORNER 3: "Empty Plates, Full Stories"

"Empty Plates, Full Stories" focused on hunger and access, highlighting the global crisis of food insecurity. A panel provided context, citing statistics from the 2025 Global Report on Food Crises. The corner invited visitors to reflect on their local experiences with hunger by writing on "empty" plates. These plates, placed on the panel, offered a space for stories about food scarcity, access, and what hunger looks like in different parts of the world. It created a powerful, personal connection to global food crises.

Prompt: What does hunger look like where you live?

Some Background:

Food insecurity refers to the lack of consistent access to enough nutritious food for an active and healthy life. Globally, food insecurity is widespread, manifesting in various forms, from chronic hunger in impoverished regions to hidden malnutrition in wealthier countries, where food deserts or income limit access to healthy options. In one way or another, we all encounter the impacts of hunger or malnutrition, whether through rising food prices, unequal distribution, or the prevalence of nutrient-poor food choices.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Bank, approximately 31.9% of the global population, equating to about 2.6 billion people, were unable to afford a healthy diet in 2024. In 2024, over 295 million people across 53 countries and territories faced acute food insecurity, marking a significant increase from previous years.

The 10 countries/territories with largest share of their analysed population facing high levels of acute food insecurity:

[Source: 2025 Global Report on Food Crises by GNAFC Global Network Against Food Crises]

CORNER 4: "Porch Protests"

"Porch Protests" brings activism into the conversation about food justice. The panel presented quotes advocating for food as a right, challenging food apartheid, and demanding respect for farmworkers, small farmers, and Indigenous food sovereignty. The panel then encouraged participants to write their own protest on signs, contributing to a growing collection of voices for change. Topics included fair wages, sustainable farming, reducing food waste, climate resilience, and fair access to food. This corner amplified the voices calling for systemic change in food systems.

Some of the "protests" as prompts:

• End Food Apartheid!We call for public planning, fair finance, and local leadership that restore access to food with dignity.

• Water Belongs to Life. No more turning rivers into sacrifice zones for profit.

• Return land and decision making power to those who steward it!

• Feed People, Cool the Climate! Climate resilient crops, agroecology, and shorter supply chains: cut emissions and keep communities cool.

• Less Poison More Pollinators!

• Animals Are Not Machines! Not to cruelty. Yes to transparency, space, and care. Yes to compassion in barns and on plates.

• food to feed people not landfill...

• Monopoly belongs in its box.

• Support seed keeping, language, ceremony, and treaty rights for Indigenous foodways to thrive!

• Keep small farmers on the land and good food on the tables!

• Food Is Culture. Protect recipes, languages, and markets that carry memory, because to nourish culture is to nourish people.

• Respect the Hands That Feed Us.

• Raise wages, protect migrants, and enforce labour law! The cost of cheap food should not be paid with human suffering!

TALK AND CIRCLE

Title: Reflections for repairing our relationship with nature. 

In this thought-provoking circle-conversation, I invited the audience into the reflective space of a porch to reconsider our relationship with nature and food. Through a conversation-based approach, I highlighted the pressing issues within our food systems while encouraging personal reflection and collective dialogue. By embracing the metaphor of the porch, where intimacy and generosity meet, we are challenged to rethink how we engage with the world around us, particularly in the context of food. This session invited attendees to share, reflect, and engage in meaningful ways that could help repair our fractured connection with the earth.

I begin by reading a passage from A Case for the Porch. Or, rethinking the edges of where we live and what we build by Charlie Hailey.

“On my porch that overlooks a river, I sit, write, sketch, and wait for things to happen. What I’m feeling is that I’m worried about the future and sitting on a porch calms me down but it also makes me anxious, because here, on the house’s edge, nature tells how everything is changing. There is no better time to rethink the edges of where we live and what we build. It’s the perfect vehicle to get outside without leaving home. Porches invite nature in. To think like a porch is to witness and to change our point of view. We don’t have to go far because stepping out on a porch brings environmental issues (climate change) to us. A porch is that place where we can stop thinking of nature from our perspective alone, but instead turn the camera on ourselves, take a # porchportrait from nature’s view, post it, and make the changes necessary to continue living on the earth. To think like a porch is to begin repairing our relationship with nature.”

After being invited by the team at Cristal Bridge to work on the installation surrounding this porch, intentionally placed at its four corners, I reflected on what a porch is. For me, the corners of a porch are sites of intimacy. They are where one sits quietly, reads, reflects, or shares something not meant for the centre. Moving through these four corners becomes a journey through four angles, both literal and metaphorical, from which to reflect on food and the systems that sustain it.

Although we spent one hour together, the talk was not conceived as a lecture or a presentation. A porch does not lend itself to one directional knowledge. It is a place for conversation. For open, sometimes raw, and occasionally intimate exchanges between people. Often between people who do not know one another, yet who have arrived at the same place at the same moment. Whether by coincidence or not, I like to consider the possibility that each person present was exactly where they needed to be. If that is true, then each person there becomes an essential ingredient in what unfolded. Each person brought something that no one else could. What I asked during the time together is simple. To share a piece of what we each had.

This felt especially fitting given that the pavilion itself was titled PORCH: an architecture of generosity. We were quite literally sitting inside a metaphor. The porch as a spatial and social device has the capacity to trigger generosity, and it is this quality I wanted to work with. The conversation I hoped to facilitate centred on sharing, with the intention of building something collectively. The focus mirrored the subject of the installation itself. Our food system, in its broadest sense.

I then introduced a visual map outlining some of the most pressing issues embedded in contemporary food systems. I invited a few minutes of quiet attention to read, to observe, and to momentarily set aside what was happening around us. What followed was a condensed overview of the challenges we have created as human beings, alongside possible paths for repair. Food is extraordinary. It is culture, memory, friendship, and ritual. It accompanies our most significant moments across cultures and geographies. It is also delicious. I am convinced that if there are other civilisations elsewhere in the universe, we must be among the best at food. The creativity, care, and ingenuity we apply to it is remarkable. Food is something we Design with great skill. And yet, in the process, we have also caused significant damage. The issues presented were only the surface. The deeper work begins when we bring our imagination, stories, and collective wisdom to reflect on these systems.

To begin that reflection together, I proposed a simple exercise and a single opening question. "How would you describe the relationship between our food choices and our relationship with nature?"

WORKSHOP

Title: Harvesting Change: A Collective Recipe for a Just Food System.

In the Food On the Porch workshop “Harvesting Change: A Collective Recipe for a Just Food System” participants collaborated to co-create a metaphorical recipe for a Just Food System. Using insights gathered from people’s input in the installation, they integrated elements from migration, food sovereignty, hunger, and activism into a shared vision for a just food system. Participants designed the metaphor of a recipe, considering ingredients (key themes), preparation steps (actions), and serving suggestions (ways to share and implement the vision). This hands-on, creative process empowered participants to actively shape a future where food is a tool for justice, resilience, and collective action.

Three things I've learnt from this experience

1. Give people a pen, and they will share what they carry. What struck me most was not what we asked people to do, but how ready they were to do it. Give people a pen, a surface, and permission, and they rarely hesitate. At Food on the Porch, most visitors moved instinctively towards one or more of the four corners of the installation. They pinned something. They wrote something. They left a trace. And what they shared was not a dish, nor simply a thought. It was identity. Migration histories. Longing, anger, gratitude, grief. It felt as though people had been waiting for a place to put what they had and what they were thinking and feeling. My work makes visible what Food Design scholars such as Carolyn Steel and Sidney Mintz have long argued: food is a carrier of social meaning, power, and memory, not merely sustenance or culture. The act of pinning became an act of offering.

   
   

2. The Porch as a metaphor for Design. Spending time on the porch invited a deeper reflection. Not only on the porch as an architectural and social space, but on the porch as a metaphor. The porch sits between inside and outside, between what we know and what lies beyond. It is familiar, yet exposed. Safe, yet open. I began to see strong parallels between the porch and Design itself. Design often operates in that "in between" condition, between existing systems and possible futures, between certainty and speculation. It facilitates the step into the unknown, not by eliminating uncertainty, but by holding it long enough to make movement possible. This resonates with Donald Schön’s notion of reflective practice and with Tim Ingold’s view of Design as a process of wayfinding rather than problem solving. The porch does not guarantee a destination. But it offers a meaningful threshold. And perhaps that is what Design does at its best. It helps us cross, thoughtfully, towards something that might look familiar, or might not, but is worth discovering.

3. Not every collective process needs a manifesto. The workshop did not generate a manifesto. That was never my intention. Over time, I have grown increasingly detached from manifestos as fixed declarations, often heavier and more self important than they need to be. Too often, manifestos are treated as endpoints, rather than as prompts for critical thinking. They become objects of reverence, instead of tools for inquiry. What emerged instead were multiple metaphorical recipes for justice, each rooted in the lived experience of the participants. These metaphors were personal, situated, and real. And that matters. They were not universal claims, but expressions of how justice is understood, felt, and imagined from different positions in the world. What I re-learned through the workshop is something I have always known, but rarely see so clearly confirmed. All people are capable of Designing new solutions when they are given the tools, the space, and the trust to do so. What was unique here was the time constraint. In just two hours, participants committed fully to the exercise. They trusted the process. They articulated thoughts they had never quite formed before, and revisited familiar issues with a depth they had not previously reached. This aligns closely with Herbert Simon’s view of Design as the ability to transform existing conditions into preferred ones, and with Elizabeth Sanders’ work on participatory Design, which emphasises people’s latent creative capacity when invited into meaningful processes.

That, ultimately, is what Design does. It slows thinking just enough to allow new connections to surface. And that is the purpose of my work.

a final note:

It was a pleasure to work on this project, to exhibit at the Biennale but also to walk from that porch, so thoughtfully conceived and crafted. It was an honour to be invited and to be given the space to share my work. It was absolutely lovely to meet Katie Robertson who curated the event, Cynthia Post Hunt who curated PorchFest, and Susan Chin who is the PORCH co-commissioner. Thank you to the hosts of this event, and thank you to all those who participated.