This collaborative and participatory exhibition showcased the various visual impact pieces that have emerged from the 'Food as a Lifestyle Motivator' (FLM) project over the past few years.
The FLM project has explored the use of creative methods to engage ‘harder to reach’ communities in Plymouth to share their food stories, to understand their needs, and to enhance their wellbeing and life-skills. The project has worked closely with homeless individuals from Devonport Lifehouse, Salvation Army homeless centre, as well as other services providing support for individuals with complex needs across the city.
This exhibition, curated by our community participatory photography partners Fotonow CIC, took the audience on a visual journey, demonstrating how creative visual methods can be used to engage harder to reach audiences, maintain effective research collaborations and optimise public engagement opportunities.
The event showcased: a selection of FLM photographic images taken by participants during the phase one pilot of the study; a selection of FLM collage pieces created by participants during a previous ESRC participatory event (with the opportunity to co-create a live dynamic community collage at the event); a three minute media impact piece called Cooking Beat the Demons in My Head; and other creative food mapping outputs from our local research into food poverty and equality.
The main part of the event was the screening of a new documentary film on the topic of food (poverty) in Plymouth.
A Q&A discussion session followed the documentary film and a comments book allowed attendees to provide their views on the event.
Attendance at this event was by invitation only. Contact clare.pettinger@plymouth.ac.uk for any queries.
