Last week we the Center participated as speakers and artists in the Conjectural Futures Conference, a two-day event around foresight and forecasting in Berlin.
The conference session, “(Inter-)planetary Conjectures” focused on how we will live on and with our planet in the future. The Center gave a talk about our work, specifically looking at the ways we use food as a mechanism for forecasting and creating new images of the future to debate and discuss. We focussed on two projects in specific: New National Dish: Portugal and LOCI Food Lab.
Between sessions, the Center hosted a pop-up LOCI Food Lab performance, where visitors could choose from a selection of attributes, which would generate a unique bite-sized taster, composed of ingredients from the Central European Mixed Forest.
LOCI MENU: Central European Mixed Forest
Ingredient research and recipe development by Vilma Luostarinen
PESTICIDED POTATO SKINS
Baked from once-threatened local varieties
PINE MONOCULTURE CRISPBREAD
Made with Scots Pine bark and juniper berries
POPPY TAHINI
Czech poppy seed butter blended with imported tahini
WILD FUNGI
Pâté with foraged forest mushrooms
BERLIN CURRYWURST
Pork sausage with British-occupied, colonial spice mix
NOT YET D.P.O. CHEESE
Crafted but not yet certified Polish cheese
CLOUDBERRY JAM
Made from uncanny Alpine and Arctic ingredients
PICKLED APPLE
Quick pickled, unsellable Polish apples with exportable Asian flavours
HYPER-LOCAL LETTUCE
Self-sustaining, Berlin-grown lettuce from Infarm with Brandenburg pumpkin seed sprinkles
BARLEY GRASS
Capsules of grass from imagined bison comeback habitat