Something Held in the Mouth

Something Held in the Mouth was a four day event bringing together artists and creative practitioners to present a diverse programme of art, exhibitions, workshops and talks about the poetics of food and the politics of its migrations. The programme aimed to somatically explore the ways in which our bodies hold food stories. The festival convened dialogues around the way food crosses boundaries and creates metabolic connections. Collectively we explored the intersections between art, food and local markets to learn about the ways artists create different alliances through geopolitical conversations.

The program included Picnic Poetico, a collective picnic hosted by Marta Fernandez Calvo. Picnic Poetico drew on the relationship between language of food and artists in the kitchen, this event was held around a fire and each person bought and read a poem that was enlivened by the food. East End Jam explored the abundant urban fruitfulness of the east end of Folkestone and ended with a discovery of a rouge apple tree in the wilds of the Folkestone Warren.(Be)Longing) was an exhibition of new photographic work by artist Daniella Valz Gen  exploring the connection of migrant bodies to the land. We also hosted Mouthings a day of presentations on the relationship between food, seeds, affect and the body.

50 Years, 50 Stories 50 Farmers’ Tales is an exhibition created by the University of Kent Ethnobotany department which showed some fascinating practices of food and land custodianship across Kent. And we cooked a community feast designed by Zimbabwean artist Lucky Moyo who performed with his band at a community meal with over 100 people in attendance.