Joyful Food Futures
Breath Joy into Food Systems Change
Many of us are moved to help solve the world’s biggest food system problems because they evoke in us outrage, anger, disgust, sadness, and fear. Unfortunately, the current emotive situation is a recipe for individual and organizational burnout and systems change fizzle out. For long-term, sustainable food systems transformation, we choose to deploy joy.
Joy underpins play and creativity. It stirs the imagination. It lightens the load, re-energizing and re-igniting. It opens up new possibilities, renewed motivations, and unexpected shifts in perspective. We seek to breathe the creative life force of joy into food systems transformation work. And we invite you to join us. Work with us to discover the role that sharing joy can play in your food systems change efforts.
Food and joy are intimately linked, especially when both are shared. Joy runs like a bright thread through the food cultures and forms of agricultural and culinary creative expression in every human society. Although food work brings toil–whether in fields, kitchens, or offices–there is also joy. Joy in farming. Joy in cooking. Joy in eating. Joy in relating to others with and through food. Joy in collectively imagining and birthing new food worlds where we share the resources of food production with others and with nature. We believe that the transformation towards sustainable and just food systems can be catalyzed by tapping into shared joy. Such shared delight can engage all of us—eaters, producers, policymakers, social sector professionals, organizational staff, business leaders—by connecting us to life affirming, resonant, and buoying values, beliefs, and actions. We can reclaim joy from its commercial use in affective marketing, and put it to use for food systems change.
“One day, our interests in network building, food systems transformation and joyful action will be joined together like rivers forming a lake.”
How Can We Help?
Food Imaginaries
What would it be like to join The Secret Society of Luscious Eaters– a community of people who eat delicious food together? What do future jobs in the food system look like in the year 2050? Through workshops and follow-on exercises, our food imaginaries work involves exploration into both fantastical and plausible future food states, prompting fresh ideas of what’s possible in terms of production and consumption, policy, market behavior, and individual, and collective action. Take a journey of imagination through our Food Jobs of 2050 Walkabout.
Awe-Inspiring
Network Mapping
Nothing gives us more pleasure than to witness the joy that people experience when they see themselves, their organizations, their efforts, and their relationships in a food movement on a Kumu map. In our experience, that joy and awe inspire, motivate, and galvanize food system practitioners into evidence-driven action. Network maps are compelling because they are awe-inspiring while being scientifically rigorous and visually magnetic. Work with us to visualize your part of the food systems transformation movement and drive awe-inspired, joyful action.
Rigorous
and Artistic
Research and Communications
Creative research methods can uncover game-changing social assets while artistic communication can get research findings to audiences in new ways. Ignited Word’s team of PhD and Masters researchers, communicators, and ideators specialize in both research and food systems and are particularly skilled in measuring social assets that often get ignored– e.g. human connections, trust, and imaginaries–even though they are the basis of systems change. Together, our hilarious comic writers, gifted artists, and data visualization gurus can help you hit entirely new emotive notes with your audiences.
Recipe Books for Belonging
Gorgeously written and illustrated, these online (or hard copy) recipe books go beyond teaching how to prepare meals—they are a celebration of the joy that comes from cooking and sharing food within families and communities. Each book is filled with community-sourced recipes and includes stories of local farmers, food activists, eaters, etc. along with informational sidebars about related equitable and sustainable food practices.
How We Supported Network Mapping for Atlanta's Food System
This map was created by the Resilient Food Futures Co-Lab, led by Dr. Nicole Kennard through the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems at Georgia Tech, with technical assistance from Ignited Word and prior datasets from their Food Systems Actors in Metro Atlanta Map. It is intended to serve as an open public resource. Please contact Dr. Nicole Kennard for questions, feedback, or to add data: nicole.kennard@gatech.edu
The map showcases organizations involved in Atlanta’s local food system and their connections to each other. From producers, to retail, to the public sector and other supporting resources, this map shows how dedicated organizations are working together towards a sustainable local food system.
Before you get started, View Our Tutorial on How to Use the Map!
Click for a direct link to the map.