Common Ground

Common Ground, created for Festival of The Mind (2020)

Artist Jo Peel has collaborated with Professor Duncan Cameron, co-director of the University’s Institute for Sustainable Food, to produce a sculptural installation and associated thought-provoking film about our changing relationship with food during lockdown.

When panic buying hit the news, many of us realised for the first time that food sustainability and food security are issues that affect us all. Common Ground deals with people’s real experiences and highlights the importance of Duncan’s research on urban farming and alternative methods of food production.

By creating a sculptural building that demonstrates these ideas in a way that is both engaging and understandable we can find common ground.

This project is self-reflective as we are not perfect, we are part of the problem and we need to look from the inside out. If we don’t eat seasonally we need to consider how to get these foods- the potential to grow soft fruit on a hydroponic farm in Sheffield, for example.

We would like to thank Professor Vanessa and the festival team for all the hard work behind the sciences, Al Daw from Sydney and Matilda for his support and being so accommodating and finally to The University of Sheffield and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council for providing the funding to allow Common Ground to happen.