Beyond The Free Market: The Art of Dumpster Diving
by Kathreen Ricketson, Canberra, Australia on 04.18.07
Eugenia Beirer is the coordinator of a group of artists collaborating in the UK called 'Beyond The Free Market' (BTFM), they launched the Free Market Kitchen in Chelsea, challenging global issues of waste, capitalism and globalisation by scavenging food, and setting up a cooking co-op where anybody can join in and share in the wealth.
We at TreeHugger admire those who take part in such waste prevention activities. Call it what you will food foraging, gleaning, dumpster diving, freeganism or fallen fruit, its free food that would otherwise be going to waste. Find out more about the collaborative kitchen and 'skipping' tours after the jump.
The BTFM are not just food foragers however, they have political motives driving their collaborative art project, Eugenia is an artist and activist who communicates through creative expression to inspire change, she is interested in building a bridge between art and activism, using art to translate ideas coming from the activist world.
More about the Free Market Kitchen: Firstly, I take people on a ‘skipping’ tour. We recover ‘waste’ fruit and veggies from the New Covent Garden Market wholesalers early in the morning, I explain to participants the workings of the market and speak about Free Market policies and food overproduction in economic terms. This engages participants in a debate around international food trade, alternative ways of existing and sustainable living. The actual kitchen adapts itself to the space it gets set up in each time. The ‘skipped’ fruit and veg are displayed and left out for free use and there’s a record player and visual material showing where the food comes from. The kitchen encourages self-organisation and a non-hierarchical, fluid and organic structure. It’s also open to newcomers, who just drop in and find out why they’ve followed a sign inviting them for a free meal! ::Beyond the free market ::Image from Flickr ::via Style with save us and New Consumer
This reminds me of Agnès Varda's documentary The Gleaners And I.
food not bombs?
yay for dumpster diving.
another thing my wife and i like to do is take the money we would have spent on groceries for ourselves and donate it to an organization (e.g. environmental work, hunger work, etc) to give us a one-two punch--saving food from the trash but also redistributing the money to a good cause.
What would be great was if laws were passed that made it legal to dumpster dive. So many places lock up their dumpsters and have security cameras aimed at them that it makes it difficult to rescue the unwanted food.
Being somewhat of a dumpster diver myself, I have nothing but praise for BTFM. Hooray for freeganisim! :)