Dirt Cafe Sitopia 2009
The upcoming UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen – COP15 – is an urgent and unique opportunity to create a better future for us all, based on the unprecedented gathering together of people with the right skills, knowledge, creativity, and common purpose. To embrace this moment, we are inviting six people to share a meal in Copenhagen and New York during the summit. The tables will be placed in staged surroundings and will be set with thought-provoking, inspirational food, while guests will be invited to discuss food, dwelling, climate and the good life. We are calling this event 'Dirt Cafe Sitopia'.
The Dirt Cafe project
The Dirt Cafe is a London-based experimental project that began in 2004. The collaborators of the Dirt Cafe Project seek humanising ways to unlock thinking by connecting specialists and influencers with those who question the status quo and give dimension to new and alternative scenarios. It draws on many precedents: the Coffee House, the Salon, Café Society and meetings under the Banyan Tree. It has been created out of a collaboration -- joined-up thinking -- between designers, chefs, food specialists, medical and well-being researchers, economists, scientists, social entrepreneurs and others. Like an 'organism', the Dirt Cafe project evolves and learns from experience. Crucial here is the creation of temporary environments that stimulate the senses and highlight connectedness to issues that matter. Through the Dirt Cafe, a thoughtful diet becomes the starting point for new conversations and new outcomes.
The most recent Dirt Cafe project was the seventh in the series and it enabled us to explore the theme of Water. Previous Dirt Cafe Debates were used to explore the themes of Rotten, Slow, Intangibles, Plastic, Eco-onomy and Regeneration.
Sitopia
We urgently need a new model for human dwelling - one that recognises cities as organic entities, intimately bound to the natural world. Carolyn Steel's proposal is sitopia, meaning 'food-place' (see http://www.hungrycitybook.co.uk/) Sitopia, in essence, is a way of recognising how powerfully food already shapes our lives, and harnessing its power to shape the world better. Food affects, not just our daily habits, but our social, political and economic structures, cultural attitudes, value systems - our very conception of what it means to be human. Food is the great connector. If we can learn to share it as a conceptual and practical tool, we can use it to shape a better common future.
The Sitopia Salon
Whereas the Dirt Cafe is a intimate event for six invited guests, the Dirt Salon, to be held the same evening, will open up the forum of debate. A hundred guests will be invited to join in the salon, enjoying food and wine and sharing stories about sitopia.