glean

Participation: Glean moves beyond top-down research models by designing resources with participants through our community-based workshops. These workshops are run by volunteers and are co-designed with participants to facillitate critically engaged discussion and activity.

 

Glean's workshop activities introduce themes (such as 'food miles') and provide tools (such as narrative design, layout and bookbinding) for participants to reflect upon and represent their personal experiences. The three resources we offer (zines, critical cookbooks and participatory picturebooks) are creative ways of presenting and sharing this work.
 

Dynamic Mapping: Glean offers a variety of mapping exercises and tools that help communities articulate their experiences of food security. In particular, these tools are designed to enable a discussion about the geographical dimensions of these experiences (for instance, in some workshops participants have mapped their daily journeys to food banks, and the barriers they encounter along the way). Unlike many conventional modes of mapping, we examine less publicly visible spaces (spaces like the kitchen within the home) and weave a wide range of data (e.g. stories, recipes, poetry, and illustration) into the map's terrain to reveal how food circulates, is produced and consumed.

 

Visual narratives: We fuse visual modes (photos, illustration, archival documents, print media) with text to help people communicate their stories of 'food security' in a vibrant and critical way.

 

 

Digital libraries: We distribute resources and share these stories through a digital library with the hope of deepening existing solidarity, creating new connections and inciting education and policy change.