Dress rehearsal : Ephemeral urbanism and food sustainability
- Submitting institution
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University of Southampton
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 55458312
- Type
- K - Design
- Open access status
- -
- Month
- April
- Year
- 2020
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Dress Rehearsal explores how ephemeral design can showcase and promote environmental change. Specifically, how certain tactical, temporary, and participative urban planning actions permit, through the strategic capacity of design, to ‘rehearse’ how a city could behave in coherence with the challenges posed by our current food production and consumption system. In response to a commission for Fostering Arts and Design Festival (2016) at Barcelona’s Design-Hub, Daniel Cid, in collaboration with Eva Serrats and Francesc Pla, curated a oneday ‘social design’ event, in which the city would act in a way coherent with the behaviour of a city committed to reducing food waste. This involved organizing a large open-air banquet for 900 diners in which all decisions addressed the challenge in hand. The ‘rehearsal’ was a collaboration with neighbours, activists, farmers, local shops, food markets, cooks, volunteers, and a scientific team that evaluated results based upon environmental, social, nutritional, economic and logistic indicators; an initiative whose purpose was to stage a socially conscious communicative action. In this way, as a form of prefigurative politics and public street action, or what the research team refer to as ‘ephemeral urbanism’, Dress Rehearsal vindicates new forms of urban planning. Conceived as a temporary, participatory, reversible, recyclable, and evaluable design experiment, the event activated connections between people and communities committed to defending and developing more sustainable ways of living and nourishing ourselves. A subsequent website, film documentary and peer-reviewed publications collate key findings. The project data demonstrates that, in a city such as Barcelona, nourishment can take place in ways that are more responsive to the challenge of food waste. It also consolidates the role of the designer as an activator and ‘scenographer’, giving meaning and direction to a complex and diverse network of actors and interests.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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