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Another Provision

About the project

Another Provision is the collaborative practice of researcher Dr. Hanna Baumann (UCL Institute for Global Prosperity) and artist Johann Arens. We are applying strategies of public art to highlight the need for increased food justice, imagine concrete alternative models and de-stigmatise public food services.

We are working with the London branch of the National Food Service (NFS), a community-initiated food network with the mission to grow and nurture a future where communities face no barriers to creating their own sustainable, resilient, and diverse food systems. 

During the Covid-19 crisis, the food insecurity plaguing communities across the UK has come into sharp relief. In this project, we have worked closely with the National Food Service London and the communities they serve to examine the networks needed to sustain food as an essential service and a basic human right. Our project draws on Dr. Baumann’s urban research and Johann Arens’ situated sculptural practice to actively support the de-stigmatisation of food banks and to enable an affirmative discourse around culturally appropriate food and social equality.

In a series of participatory workshops, a shared meal was accompanied by discussions of the meaning of food to participants and how to reclaim ownership and power over our food. The voices and findings from these events have fed into the making of a mobile art installation and contributed to our publication on just urban food systems.

Our collaboration is driven by the necessity to advocate for more food equality as well as social and sustainable food chains through research, art and culture. We share a deep interest in communal food infrastructures and the implementation of ethical and low-waste food chains, as part of a political vision of Universal Basic Services, free to all at the point of access.
 


About the artists

White man with short hair and safety glasses manipulated a long metal rod into a loop. frames by two windows either side of him.


Johann Arens uses installation and video to survey the documentary properties of public interiors and their inherent social textures. These site-related interventions are enquiries into the multiple ways social policy can impact our communal life and shape civil behaviour. He has been resident at Fondazione Antonio Ratti, BSR in Rome, Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and realised a number of public art commissions assigned by Arnolfini Bristol, Bold Tendencies London, Jerwood Space London and Kettle’s Yard Cambridge. Recent work has been shown at Manifesta13 Marseille (2020); Pump House Gallery London (2019); IMMA Irish Museum of Modern Art Dublin; P/////AKT Amsterdam, IFFR Rotterdam (2018) and Neuer Aachener Kunstverein (2016).


white woman with brown short hair and smart clothing smiles to the camera


Hanna Baumann is an interdisciplinary urban researcher with a background in Architecture,Art, and Migration Studies. She is concerned with the ways the built environment enables or disables the participation of marginalised residents of the city and frequently uses visual, participatory and arts-based methods to explore this. Her current work, funded by a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, examines the role of infrastructures and public services in excluding and incorporating refugees in Beirut and Berlin. (image credit: Vibeke Mascini)

Visit the exhibition:

 

Free, Open daily: 
The Art Pavilion, Mile End Park, E3 4QY
29 April - 8 May, 11:00 - 18:00

NO BOOKING NEEDED. More details on the location and accessibility.


Launch of Another Provision

Friday 6 May, 18:00 - 21:00

Join Another Provision for the launch of our installation and publication, developed in collaboration with National Food Service – London. You will hear from artist Johann Arens and researcher Hanna Baumann about our joint project on food as an urban infrastructure. Patrons and volunteers of the National Food Service will read excerpts from texts produced for the publication ‘Another Provision: food infrastructures and collective care in London’. Finally, we will inaugurate a mobile installation for communal eating by sharing a delicious meal on it.

   

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