the end is the beginning (is the end is the beginning…) is the seed of an exploratory project by artist and researcher Cherry Truluck. It reimagines the future of how and what we eat as a direct reflection of the cycles and rhythms that shape our food system (growth, production, metabolism, waste) and using alternative temporal frameworks of growing (including permaculture and agroecology). The work engages community elders to explore how existing knowledge and intergenerational exchange can be the root of radical change. Here ‘elders’ is an expanded term, meaning not just those who are older but those who have lived experience of vulnerability to the chaos of our broken food system.
Through participatory encounters with collaborators JarSquad and the Rebel Farmer, Medway residents (the elders) are invited to join together in collectively dreaming their way towards a future where everyone has more equitable and sustainable access to food. At these kitchen table gatherings, Cherry will investigate the production and sustaining of food and community through the sharing of memories and through the practical tools of seed harvesting, allotmenteering, mixology, preserving and pickling. In the process the kitchen table is reframed as a site for permaculture thinking.
‘Kitchen table permaculture’ then sets the scene for a performative offering and shared tasting, in which Cherry (re)constructs a recipe generated through the participatory encounters and gifts it to an audience of Medway residents, in an act of reciprocity with the community who created it.
the end is the beginning (is the end is the beginning…) is commissioned by Cement Fields and University of Greenwich with public funding from the Regional Innovation Fund and Arts Council England.