Social Movement

Gratitude, Gratitude Practice, Happiness, Joy, Making a Difference, Service, Ten Thousand Days, The Daily Practice

A Global Renaissance

January 22, 2020

Photo: Olm Vibes

Day 1979 – Day 1985

That title of my previous post, “YouTube Famous” was a nod to the Millennial generation, the first generation to grow up on social media, and to create and aspire to participate in the phenomenon of going viral. I have no expectation that TTDOG’s YouTube channel will become YouTube famous and in fact, at a personal and selfish level, I’d be horrified and my skin begins to itch at the thought of it, because I am attached to this project. I’ve known several famous people and fame is something that looks great on the outside but comes at a very high price. I told a story and hoped that it would take the reader along a journey with me but maybe I didn’t signpost clearly enough the final destination. I truly do want the practice of Gratitude to go viral. It is the only reason that I’ve continued to write about gratitude, and my gratitude practice, past the original 7 day Facebook challenge.

Like every human, I am wildly flawed and plagued by ego – both the self-aggrandizing and the self-deprecating sides of that ego coin. My name may be associated with this project but being on camera, I pretty quickly realized that I needed to tell the story while taking the focus off of me, even as the storyteller. Yes, I am the writer and it is my subjective story of a long-term practice of gratitude that I am telling but the protagonist of the story is Gratitude, not me.

If this story of Ten Thousand Days of Gratitude should happen to go viral, if I’ve done my job well, it is Gratitude that will spread like wildfire. I will have succeeded in achieving one of my goals – these last 5 years – to be an instrument of what Robert Emmons calls a Global Renaissance of Gratitude.

My channel isn’t competing with all the other content providers making videos on gratitude. It is competing with the channels glorifying luxury consumption, self-made star status, and the obsession with more that comes from a mindset of lack.

I am aware of the underlying Christian ethic in the West that says one should not be seen to be virtuous in public. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches that to guard against hypocrisy, one ought to be somewhat clandestine with our virtue. Whether one is Christian or not, if one lives in a Western democracy, this is a prevailing cultural imperative and we use it to assume hypocritical intentions of anyone who sets out to inspire others to follow a virtuous path, no matter how humbly it is done.

We have become so cynical that an outward expression of thanks is considered suspect and the whole practice of forming a habit and an attitude of gratitude is considered cliché. To be cliché means it is overdone, and the art of genuinely living gratefully is, sadly, forgotten in our modern world. We fill the air with empty words of thanks, to maintain an appearance of politeness, while sneering at those actively forming a practice to honour the sacredness of gratefulness, expressing profound appreciation to others, and acting upon that thankfulness to increase the good in the world. I’m afraid our happiness and wellbeing indices tell a story of a culture that is tragically lacking in gratitude, despite our social etiquette.

Public practice of a virtue is condemned, yet on television, in the news, on social media, and in our gossip, we make it a guilty pleasure to be spectators of the public practice of vice. That, to me, is hypocrisy.

The demographic that reads a written blog like this is somewhat different to the younger demographic that watches YouTube. There is yet a different demographic that consumes podcasts. Whether TTDOG gains a large following or not, I will put TTDOG on each of these platforms to increase the chance that this story will inspire others to practice gratitude. Emotion is contagious and in a world with the airwaves filled with bad news, I’d like to counteract that and spread the complex emotion of gratitude, with all the associated positive emotions and behaviours that attach to it.

I’m a servant to a social movement of Gratitude and a volunteer employee of the TTDOG brand. Doing this work comes at the sacrifice of earning more money in my professional gig and at the cost of my own creative work. I have been transformed and healed through the steadfast daily practice of gratitude and the cultivation of an attitude of grateful living. I could not, in good conscience, not do this work.

I believe in the great potential of gratitude to change the world. I have experienced in my own life what Robert Emmons calls the ARC model of gratitude – the ability of gratitude to Amplify, Rescue and Connect each of us. Gratitude amplifies the good in the lives of ourself and others by changing our predisposition to one that expects and recognizes the goodness in the world, it rescues us from a world built on doom and gloom, transforming a natural negativity bias, that robs us of our happiness, into a bias towards benevolence and the capacity for joy, and it connects us to others with our desire to pass on the great good we have experienced, though reciprocity.

I am dedicated to do my part to further a social movement of gratitude. Speaking of the teachings of Brother David Steindl-Rast, Emmons eloquently says, in The Little Book of Gratitude:

“The spark that can ignite a trend towards global gratitude is the zeal of men and women
who discover that grateful living makes life meaningful and fulfilling.”

Photo: Faris Mohammed

For what are you most grateful, today?

Art, Art, Articles, Nature, Oneness, Service

Louis Masai and His Tribe: Shepherding Consciousness Towards Animal Welfare

January 20, 2016

We kick off 2016 with the first in a series of articles featuring individuals who are making a difference in the world – where they are, with the talents they have – through Service. Our first interview features the UK artist Louis Masai, who uses his skills as a contemporary fine artist and muralist to give a voice to the voiceless and promote environmental conservation.

The global climate summit COP 21 concluded last month and Louis Masai traveled to Paris to add to his works with the environmental NGO, Synchronicity Earth, on endangered species. In advance of the climate talks, he painted a coral mural outside Paris which is part of a series of murals he is painting in several countries.

In September, Louis Masai began the series by creating the largest mural he has painted to date, in London. The painting depicted a coral reef with various reef dependent species to highlight the biodiversity of marine ecosystems and corals under threat. The work was the artist’s first interactive piece, with members of the public suggesting species to include in his design as he painted, and the work received tremendous media attention. The artist has gone on to paint smaller coral follow-up pieces in Ireland, South London and Paris.

#LondonLovesCoral Mural by Louis Masai with Synchronicity Earth, in London. Photo by Tania Campbell

Marine ecosystems are vitally important to life on the planet. Oceans cover more than 2/3 of the surface, and plankton in marine ecosystems provide 50% of the world’s oxygen as well as food and livelihoods for vast numbers of the global population, particularly for the world’s poor. As part of the marine ecosystem, coral reefs are home to a multitude of marine life but with climate change, coastal runoff, overfishing and marine pollution, 75% of the world’s coral reefs are currently under threat with some environmentalists projecting that 90% of the worlds reefs will be under threat by 2030. The worlds largest coral reef, the Great Barrier Reef, barely remained off the UNESCO endangered list in 2015 and remains under a severe threat watch for the next several years.

These threats have serious implications for mankind. Seagrasses and mangroves have been lost with the worsening health of marine ecosystems. When coupled with coral losses and degradation, this has promoted the growth of disease spreading algal blooms in coastal waters which threaten to change disease vectors for masses of populations of humans and terrestrial wildlife. The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) scientists responsible for projections about the likelihood of climate change and the risks and impacts of that climate change confirm in their 5th Assessment report the vulnerability of coral reefs. The existing and projected degradation of coral reefs exacerbates the threat of sea level rise to coastal systems and low-lying areas and this will persist, even if the world manages to stabilise temperatures.

The environmental threat from degradation of the world’s reefs and marine ecosystems is extreme and it will take the concerted effort of the world’s population to improve our combined destiny. Digesting this grave information is not easy but Louis Masai has teamed up with Synchronicity Earth to help raise awareness by making all the frightening statistics more accessible and personal.

Louis Masai workng on his mural #LondonLovesCoral. Photo Courtesy of London Calling Blog

Louis Masai working on his mural #LondonLovesCoral. Photo Courtesy of London Calling Blog on Instagram: @ldn_calling_blog

Whilst the COP 21 Climate Change summit was underway in Paris, we had the opportunity to connect with the artist via email for an interview.

TTDOG: You have shied away from the term activist in the past, but I know that you care deeply about the rapid wave of extinctions of species and of biodiversity loss. You have expanded beyond individual species and animals now to a much wider crisis – that of the vanishing coral reefs and, therefore, of entire marine ecosystems. You have painted in Paris at the start of COP21 where all the world’s leaders gathered to set the agenda that will affect the world’s climate which is arguably at a tipping point. What does this wider vision and forum mean to you and how do you hope your work will impact on leaders, environmentalists and individuals?

LM: Well, to be honest, I doubt very much that politicians that aren’t already engaged in the thoughts of environmental issues will become altered by stumbling upon my coral hearts in Paris or by the other paintings that I have done. In fact, they are probably blissfully unaware that I am doing it. There are other art projects happening in Paris that might reach them, but even still, I don’t personally believe that visual language can reach an unethical mind. However, I do believe that the people that vote governments in to power will be affected by visual language and I also believe that these images can inform the general public and, hopefully, unite the people to encourage the right politicians to lead countries and represent us at environmental summits.

Environmentalists love my work for the simple reason that it addresses issues that they are concerned with; It depicts them in an attractive way, and it helps to reach the wider audience. And, as individuals, I think 1 in 10 people will take note and allow for the message to override the actual image itself. I hope so, anyway.

TTDOG: You have said before that you inject a human element in your work. Have you done this in your recent series of coral paintings with synchronicity earth? In what way?

LM: Well the big coral mural I did in London doesn’t depict human juxtaposition in the way that my other work does, but if you look into the centre of the shape, there is a heart shaped hole which I have coined “the keyhole” which means the biodiversity that I have created is a padlock. Every keyhole has a key.

Detail from London mural #LondonLovesCoral by Louis Masai with empty heart "keyhole"amidst the biodiversity padlock. Photo courtesy of Instagrammer @m_frenchie

Detail from London mural #LondonLovesCoral by Louis Masai with empty heart “keyhole” in the upper left circle. Photo courtesy of Instagrammer @m_frenchi

The coral hearts that I painted in South London, Paris and before in Ireland are the keys. This idea of keys and lock symbolises that to unlock a sustainable ecosystem, like the coral reef, we must all have a key to invest into its survival. The keys become metaphors for the human itself, and thus, the juxtaposition of human and animal becomes a little bit more obvious. Essentially all my coral paintings are connected together in some way because of the heart, which by the way is not shaped like I have painted them, this shape is a human interpretation.

Coral Key in South London by Louis Masai. Photo by Tania Campbell

TTDOG: Your work seems to focus on environmental crisis. What drives you to give a voice to those who do not have one within your paintings and then to engage and include so called marginalised people who are not otherwise part of the environmental discussion through interaction with your art?

LM: I haven’t ever stopped to figure that out, it’s just something that happened naturally, over time. I guess I’m just creating large real life jigsaw puzzles.

TTDOG: Your name is “Masai” and it is a word that seems both sacred and integral to your painting. Would you be willing to share how you gained the name and how it’s meaning infuses your work? What does it mean to you to call your followers “Masai Tribe?”

LM: I have fond memories of wild tales from my Opa about my dad in the Cameroons (now part of Nigeria and the Country of Cameroon) and it is those stories twinned with the Archeological treasures we had at home that steered me in the direction of tribal cultures. I soon discovered an amazing book called Africa Adorned (By Angela Fisher). I became fixated with a tall tribe bearing spears and shields, dressed in beautiful red tartans.

I later understood them to be the Masai warrior tribe.

I have a particular interest in the idea of one’s creation and the way that a person can shape and define who and what they are perceived to be by the general public. Being that I am an artist and one that engages in the public domain on a daily basis, I realised that my love of graffiti and the ideology of fame through a moniker or alter ego was, in many ways, no different from the inventions of the band names and frontmen that I was listening to, on my records. It’s also not uncommon for fine artists to invent their own names. Man Ray, for example, even took it a step further and his name became the art itself. Again, I found this very interesting and something that I wanted to incorporate with my own work.

With these factors all combined and running around my busy head some 8 or 9 years ago, I decided that I wanted a powerful name that I hoped could one day become as important as the work i was creating. I feel it’s starting to approach that place now, especially as my work is about raising awareness for endangered species and threatened ecosystems. The Masai are shepherds which is a nice link to the idea of an artist collecting consciousness amongst the peoples for animal welfare.

The reason for using Masai tribe in my social media is as a way to remind my followers that we are all unified in the success of one mans objectives. If mine is to spread awareness then it’s the tribe’s to move it from my page to theirs and further. I feel the word tribe removes any superiority amongst us.

TTDOG: I admire the way you have worked so incredibly hard and collaborated with activists to both make a living as an artist and to make a difference in the world. Both the art world and the world of socio/environmental/political change are really challenging. People often fear that they alone can’t make a difference. What would you say to them?

LM: Well, to start with, it depends what that one man standing solo is trying to achieve. You can’t play football on your own, but you can play a game with that ball on your own. So I guess what I’m saying is that if you want to make a difference and you feel isolated and alone then change the way you address it or go and knock and some doors and get a full team of football fans to play with you.

For me words like “original”, “unique” and “individual” are misused words because someone else has done it before, thought it before, and there will be many to follow. What i mean is that there are many more “you”’s out there and they care just as much, so find them. Your mission is to create the links, make a tribe and spread the message further.

Throughout his career, Louis has been evolving, creating connections and spreading his message. Although not always connecting his painting with specific conservation projects, he has long had a special ability to paint character-filled animals. Painting for several group and solo contemporary art gallery exhibitions, he also honed his skills with public murals in London and in several other countries. Louis’ evolving relationship with visual communication between animals as subjects and the public as viewer matured through several series of works, and began to focus on raising awareness of endangered species. His earlier work with Synchronicity Earth marked the passing of the 50th anniversary of the IUCN Red List for endangered species.

Shortly after this project, TTDOG had the pleasure to meet the artist at his solo exhibition “Batteries Not Included”, in London. There, Louis spoke about his work with Synchronicity Earth and of the importance for the public to understand and act now on the IUCN Red List for endangered species. His deeply moving connection with his subjects and his conviction to try to make a change was palpable to all in attendance.

A film by Synchronicity Earth was launched at the opening of the exhibition and provides a glimpse into the passion and purpose of Louis Masai and the Synchronicity Earth Team.

Whilst busy creating several other series of paintings for gallery exhibitions and as public art, Louis Masai teamed up in 2014 with fellow artist Jim Vision to turn their skills towards an urgent issue – the collapse of pollinator communities across the UK. Engaging with the public to educate and raise awareness, the pair created a series of murals in London. The project culminated in a day of community consciousness and awareness raising around the delicate ecosystem and the threats to the food chain, and textile crops from colony collapse. Local beekeepers, Friends of the Earth, Hiver honey beer, Thompson Morgan seeds and Rockwell House joined the artists’ cause, to help make the project a success.

The project to save the bees caught the attention and inspired the imagination of the UK public. A short film by Emil Walker helped deliver the message of the dangers to humanity of the collapse of bee colonies to audiences beyond the UK.

The project has been featured in social media by environmentalists such as Greenpeace, and Ecowatch, activist sites like Films for Action and the trend setting site Bored Panda as well as mainstream media. As the debate around banning neonics continues in countries like USA and Canada, and as Europe and the global South works to revive the pollinator population, the project provides a perfect example of how communities are both impacted by and can impact upon bee colony health.

Although the global climate meeting of the Conference of Parties 21 concluded late last year with a landmark climate agreement to end fossil fuels use and limit carbon emissions, implementing this agreement and limiting the other greenhouse gasses which threaten the climate will be a complicated process involving unpopular political policy and major lifestyle adjustments for the world’s population. We know this work cannot be done by governments alone.

As the world struggles to back away from climate disaster, Louis Masai’s paintings, as real life jigsaw puzzles, help remind even a fraction of his audience that we each hold the key to unlock the preservation of biodiversity.

We asked Louis Masai one final question:

TTDOG: For what are you most grateful, and where do you find your greatest joy?

LM: I just give thanks for the life I live. For me, joy is in nature, so I hope to find ways to preserve it.

For further information on the work of Louis Masai:

Louis Masai’s Website

Louis Masai on Facebook

Louis Masai on Instagram

Art, Art, Articles, Community, Music, Oneness

From social phenomena to Social Movement: Food of War

September 25, 2015

Amidst the refugee crisis in Europe, the UK visit of the Dalai Lama, and the celebration in Trafalgar Square of UN World Peace Day, last night, a new Social Movement, Food of War, celebrated its launch event to raise awareness of the linkages between food and war.

Visitors to BSMT space in Dalston were greeted with a multi-media and multi-sensorial event. Music and films played in various alcoves, while paintings and photography challenged the viewer to interrogate the relationship between food and conflict while food and drinks piqued the taste buds as well as the collective unconsciousness. The aim was to make connections between the sensory experience and the intellectual understanding of the represented conflicts.

In the statement by the collective, we are reminded that:

“Above all, food is about power”

Visitors saw this power-play in the intersections of the various food and art to be experienced. Sugar cane juice enlivened the taste buds with the familiar but richer, more essential, flavour of South America as we gazed on Omar Castañeda’s painting “Raped Seeds: Farmers vs Government – Sugar Cane” which depicts farmers greeting police with the traditional Colombian drink. Peasants opposed the Colombian government in 2013 for offering no protection to small farmers under Free Trade Agreements or against big agri-businesses like Monsanto. This opposition, depicted as violent in the press, began as a peaceful but political protest through the universal act of hospitality – sharing of food.

“Raped Seeds: Farmers vs Government – Sugar Cane” by Omar Castañeda

Unlike the Colombian farmer who battles to compete and preserve their heritage seed, Food of War aims to metaphorically plant the seed in the minds of the public and other artists to begin to engage in thought and dialogue around both the current relationships and heritage of Food and War.

Other works evoked different conflicts. A short film by Omar Castaneda and Monica Rubio about the traditional Spanish food, Las Gachas, combined with the taste of the food itself, evoked, for visitors the hardships and resilience of the people during the Spanish Civil War. In another alcove, a documentary film by Quintina Valero accompanied by Italian salad represented the triumph of local communities despite long standing conflicts with the Mafia. Finally, an offering of hummus sat upon a cloth embroidered with a hummus recipe in several languages, representing the conflict in the middle east. All visitors were treated to a slice of cake which bore the edible inscription of the Food of War Manifesto

Photography from the ‘Maiden Women’ project by Omar Castaneda and Quintina Valero documents the role of women and food in the conflict in the eastern Ukraine.

“Maiden Women” by Omar Castañeda and Quintina Valero. Photo by Quintina Valero, courtesy of Food of War.

In the final room, a short film by Omar Castaneda juxtaposes violent images of police assault and peasant protest with haunting and powerful music by Carolina Munoz. Work by the opera singer Hyalmar Mitrotti was also represented.

Upon entering the gallery, the visitor was confronted by the painting “Food Inc. Refugees” by Omar Castaneda, which challenges the viewer to make the connections between the way in which our humanity has been called into question over the refugee crisis in Europe. This is represented by the desperate refugees found dead in a lorry normally used to transport dead battery farmed chickens.

Omar Castañeda With his painting “Food Inc. Refugees”

Before the launch, I had the opportunity to discuss the Food of War with three of the members of the collective, Omar Castaneda, Hernan Barros and Quintina Valero.

Tell us about your organisation, how it was founded and what are your aims?

Omar Castañeda

Omar: In 2010 we travelled to Palestine and Israel and we saw this connection of food. It was really important in those areas.

For example, to go to a checkpoint you have to leave all your food, if you’re going from the Palestine to the Israeli territories but going the other way, it is no problem. So we thought okay, there are pretty interesting objects and subjects and ideas that we can develop.

We saw all these problems that they had with food and how they managed to appropriate Western brands and make their own in Palestine. There was this kind of ‘fight’ in a way. I want to be a part of it but the world doesn’t want to let us be a part. So we thought okay there’s something important happening around these foods. We – Monica Rubio and I – spent three weeks there. We started working with the project until Monica became busy with having a family and Hernan Barros came on board as part of the art collective. We started developing the whole idea, as a group, and we started writing The Manifesto.

Hernan Barros

Hernan: There was a lot of discussion with Monica in the beginning because she is a documentarian, Omar is a visual artist and I work with visual effects and I write. So, in the beginning we were thinking this could be a documentary or this could be a cookbook or an exhibition and then we started debating and we thought this could be a Movement so everyone would be welcome to contribute in different ways. And, now we have associated artists. At one point a singer approached us and I thought: “What?” and then Omar said “Of course she can, she can be a part of it!”

Omar and I collaborated and then Quintina joined the movement, once we decided this could be a movement. Quintina is a photojournalist which brings a completely different angle to the work. She is more “hands on” – like a street fighter. She is the type of professional that goes out, takes pictures and interacts with the community and so she brings that quality, which was a little lacking in us, until then.

When she came along, she really liked the idea and she said let’s go to the Ukraine – something is happening in the Ukraine – and so Omar and Quintina went there and worked for over a month. The way that she has really influenced the movement is to be more hands on and interacting with the community.

And so, we welcome everyone who can, in a creative way, explore the relationship between food and war through art, ideally under the principles of our Manifesto, and raise awareness of ongoing and past conflicts.

Omar: For us its really important to have the experience from the people; from the situation. Quintina has the press card so she can travel to places that I cannot, but I’d like to. So it was really interesting the way we collaborated because she is a photojournalist and I am an artist and so sometimes we clash because we have different approaches but I learned a lot from her and she learned a lot from me and we learned how to work together and how to do a project as a collective.

We want to plant the seeds in the minds of people to think that every time we eat something, there is something behind that. Nowadays its so easy to go to the supermarket and we don’t think where food comes from so that’s something we want to do – to make people aware of what’s behind the produce that we eat.

Tell us about your name: Why Food of War and not Food of Peace?

Hernan: We were just discussing this yesterday and we were saying that it is in times of peace that we appreciate the consequences of war and we are grateful that we are not at war. But it is when we are at war that there is this power play, all the time, and that is what we like to explore because food, above all things, is about power. In war, there is a clash of power. We are not pro war, we just like to observe it and dissect it, through food.

Omar: Through our research for our projects we have realised that the things we have nowadays have come from the times of war. We don’t think these two things (food and war) belong together but actually they are really linked. Many of our ‘fast foods’ comes from war – tinned food which came from the Napoleonic war.

Hernan: Think about Spanish food! Where would we be without all the ingredients the Spanish took when they invaded Latin America? They took spices and even potatoes so there would be no patatas bravas without that conflict. It wasn’t a war initially, it was an invasion and then it was a war with the Latin American uprising. And before that, when the Muslims invaded Spain and continued to influence them for some 800 years, it really influenced the food. The Moors were powerful so they took what they wanted from the farms but they didn’t eat pork so the pigs were left for the farmers. So the peasants maximized what they could get from the animal. That’s why we have chorizo and all the pork based foods from Spain. They used everything – they even ate the ears. All the food that remains when we go on a gastronomic tour of Spain is a direct consequence of war. We eat these in times of peace but they come from times of war.

What wars are within scope of interrogation in reciprocal relation to food?

Omar: I’m obsessed with food. I’m really passionate about food. All my projects began because there was a fight between my father and my mother to get control of the kitchen. In order to show that they had power they decided to buy a fridge. My mother bought a fridge and then my father decided to buy a bigger fridge to show: “I’ve got money, I’ve got the power.” And then my mother did the same. In the end, we had 7 fridges. And we weren’t allowed to eat the food inside the fridge.

I know its weird. But that’s an example of how domestic violence can start it off.

Hernan: We haven’t explored that since we created the movement. We started working with wars between countries and religions but we are open to do a piece like that. So far we haven’t but that doesn’t mean we aren’t interested. We are open if an artist comes with an interesting proposal that isn’t about war between two countries or two religions, but maybe conflict between two communities or neighbourhoods.

Omar: So its not just war, its the relationship between food and conflict. For example I can have a problem with Hernan and probably I can sort it out over sharing food. In the gallery we have a film with a song about the conflict between the peasants and the government and Monsanto in Colombia so its not just about war between countries, in this case it was within my own country. We like to explore all of that.

Quintina Valero

Quintina: Yes, carrying on with the same theme, we are exploring a future project around conflicts around water. I have some experience from Spain and how the government and communities are dealing with shortage of supply of water. We can see that the same issues are going on in other countries. So, it is not just food, either. It is food and water and the interactions. And its great to get to work together because everyone brings ideas.

We get so many people sharing things we’d like to explore. At least it gets people starting to think about it.

Hernan: Yes, its like therapy. Last time I was here in this space at the gallery opening, I was talking to people and I say what I do and everyone says – “Oh well, in my country…”

Omar: It’s when you say the two words together that people make the connection. That’s why we aren’t called Food of Peace, because when you put the two together, people say their personal stories. “Food and War? Oh, my brother dah dah dah…”

Your manifesto refers to your group as a movement and that you don’t take sides in your works or have any party affiliation, the word movement implies evolution and change at the level of civil society. How does this manifest with your movement?

Quintina: What we try to do, where there is a conflict, and it is possible, we try to see both sides and document both sides of the story. For example in the Ukraine, there is a conflict in the East. We try to show both sides. At the moment there is only one part in the show but the other part is coming. Without being on one side or the other, we try to raise awareness of the issues. We want to show both sides so they see that the same problems are shared.

Omar: However, we document the wars and the issues but we want to go further and we are planning to do more about those issues. We see ourselves as helping those people that are in conflict, building bridges between the parties that are in conflict. We think we have a social agenda.

Quintina: But, we are also artists…

Hernan: We’re people! We’re always going to have a side, whether we want it or not, and maybe it leaks into the work. You try to be impartial but maybe they don’t even let you go there to the other side . If we tried to do something on North and South Korea, we probably couldn’t go to North Korea and then people will think hmmm…

Quintina: Yes, even in the Ukraine I had that problem. I was with the journalists and as soon as someone was publishing on social media, they would decide you were working with the rebels and wouldn’t let you go to that area. So its quite difficult sometimes. At least if we can only cover one side we try to have someone else cover the other. We try to be neutral.

We work in different ways and we are always learning. We are learning about the issues, we are learning about each other and we are learning from the food. We want to make others aware as well.

Hernan: Yes, it’s like people can go – “Oh, I didn’t know there was something happening there. I didn’t know there was an issue with food in Western Sahara”

Omar: We are working on something now for the 30th anniversary of Chernobyl. We did an exhibition with photographs and propaganda but we are also doing a documentary from different countries. That is coming.

How and why have you selected the dishes and pieces in the show, today?

Omar: We are showing 7 works here tonight and we decided to take the works from artists that have been working with us for a long time and that have most relevance to our message. We chose the food that is familiar to the audience coming today so that they can understand what we’re talking about.

Hernan: Like for instance we took the Las Gachas, Hummus and Italian salad, we have a cake with our manifesto and we have a sugar cane drink to represent the Colombian conflict. And I will ask people to write on edible paper with edible ink. So we cover the Spanish civil war, the middle east conflict, the mafia control in Italy, Colombia peasant opposition and also the Ukraine conflict and the European refugee crisis.

What would you like visitors to take away from this event?

Omar: This is a multidisciplinary art collective so there are multidisciplinary things going on. There are no borders. Food is part of the art, food is part of the cooking, food is something to help you think about the works while you’re eating.

Something is going to happen to them like: “Oh really, I didn’t know about this conflict…wow, hummus…is that going there? Oh the immigrants…” And this idea of carrying away the dead immigrants the way they carry away dead chickens.

I think people are going to start making links through all of these connections.

Hernan: We’re aiming at that connections that normally you don’t make when you are tasting something. I call it the forgotten sense – tasting. The other senses you use for basic survival but you also use them for aesthetic pleasure. But with food, there is very little sense of intellectual connections of something happening behind this or the consequences that brought this dish here. A dish is like a biopsy of what has happened. It’s like cutting a slice of time and space and anything – financially, culturally or socially – can be reflected through a dish.

We are aiming for that to happen if not in this exhibition then it will be the seed for it to start.

Omar: This is our seed and we want to plant the seed for the movement in every person that comes today and make them think.

Quintina: We are open, we are looking for people to come into the group or even some ideas for future projects. It’s just the beginning.

What is the role of community in the themes you address?

Quintina: The way we work is we do research on the problem or conflict, the food related to it, and then when we go there, we interview people from all aspects of the community and then, when we can, we offer a workshop to give back to the community and to include food and drawing and art.

We try to bring a seed to open a door to come back and also to work with local artists. It’s very interactive way we work with the community.

Omar: Also, we contact NGOs or people working in the countries to be able to go to places we need to go, or to give us ideas of where and how to work in the area. Thanks to one of the NGOs we got to go to one of the refugees camps in the Ukraine and that was really powerful. We want to be part of the that to understand the whole situation.

What is the greatest hope for this collective movement? What would be a dream-come-true?

Hernan: To work with as many artists as we can, to increase our knowledge and to raise awareness of as many conflicts as possible. To reach as many people as possible.

Omar: Yes, that’s exactly it.

Quintina: Yes and there are many ways of collaborating. When we went to the Ukraine, they arranged a translator for us, sometimes they give us accommodation, we also hope to be connected to other artist collectives, and people from galleries who want to exhibit our work. There are many ways we can work with people together.

Omar: Yes but at the moment it is just ourselves funding the project…

Quintina: …and we’ve had to delay our second part of the Ukraine project because there isn’t enough funding.

Hernan: We are looking for applying for funding for our projects. We are just at the beginning and we are proving ourselves, still.

Omar: Today we are making our statement and people can talk about us for better or worse and we are putting ourselves on the map.

And finally, because it is the nature of this particular magazine to ask: For what are you most grateful in relation to this work?

Quintina: I am very grateful to be invited to be part of Food of War and the first time they spoke to me about the collective 2 years ago I was very interested and excited and I was pleased when they invited me to be part of the collective. Since then, I have learned a lot from the way they work and the way we work together and the possibilities I’ve had to work on very interesting projects so its very exciting to be part of the group and doing what we do.

Hernan: For me, it is the opportunity to rescue the forgotten sense – taste – and to take it to another level. Every time that I meet someone and I see the way they eat and their cultural background, I am seeing the world through a different lens. I am very grateful because I had that in me but I didn’t know how to channel it. Food of War has given me the excuse to channel it and to pursue it. I don’t just have Vietnamese food because it tastes so good. There is a whole story about how Vietnamese food has evolved through all different wars, through the French invasion, through the Chinese invasion and through the war with the Americans. When you find a eureka moment, when you make all these connections, it makes you happy and you want to share it with everyone. And it’s not just past conflicts; when it’s about current conflicts its even more powerful.

Omar: I’m grateful to understand that food is a very powerful tool to communicate with people and communities. It’s something we take for granted. I don’t know how to explain it. I’m so pleased that working on these projects has given me the ‘salt’ to be happier and to learn more about war as well. Food has that other meaning.

And I would like to thank two of the artists in the show who are not with us today, Carolina Munoz and Hyalmar Mitrotti.