Recent and Upcoming:

Squash Liverpool has just started to run Digesting Politics Lunches.
Dates and details to come soon.

Food Goes Further with Sean Roy Parker
Friday 29 November 2019 from 12-2pm
at Company Drinks in Barking Park.

For more information click here.

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Download the placemat and poster for the lunches, designed by Europa.

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Throughout 2018 and 2019

Digesting Politics Lunches at Company Drinks
As a result of the #DigestingPolitics in 2017 in Barking, Company Drinks will continue the communal lunch as a fixed feature around the politics of food, with each lunch resulting in a series of calls to action that can be applied at Company Drinks itself, at everyone’s home and as a collective suggestion to the council to change local politics and to the local MP to lobby on a national level.

More information about the different speakers and lunches is here.

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Previous lunches elsewhere include:

14 December 2017, 1 – 2 pm
Middlesbrough Insitute of Modern Art (mima)
As part of mima’s weekly Community Day

17 November 2017, 1 – 2pm
Communal Lunch at Company Drinks, Barking

Company Drinks is about going picking and making drinks, as much as it is about asking questions about where our food comes from and what local food production means. As part of Digesting Politics we are hosting a communal lunch with some of our regular collaborators and pickers, to start having more conversations about politics and politics of food, and how they affect what we eat and drink.

One of the popular slogans in the run up to the EU Referendum last year was: ” British Strawberries don’t pick themselves.” However much we want to eat local food, be self sufficient and bring food production back to a sustainable scale, we are all caught in complicated and often global networks of production and distribution.

Food, whether local or non-local, also brings us together, and a conversation over a simple potatoe soup might reveal more politics in the room than we’d expect.

 

23 September 2017, 11am – 3pm
Tea and cake at Grand Union, Birmingham

Free, book here

You are cordially invited to tea, cake and a discussion about men in politics. Despite the UK’s two male prime ministers, only 208 out of 650 MPs are men. Why are men much less likely to run for office? Many people just believe that men aren’t ambitious enough or can’t be bothered with all the ugliness of the public political sphere.

Well, this doesn’t sound right, does it? You’ve probably realised by now that we deleted the letters w and o. Seems strange to talk about men’s politics, doesn’t it? Just like we would never say it’s a “men’s art show” when it is all male. Why are we using these categories and narratives? What does it mean to divide political processes along gender lines? Why is it still so binary?

Can we find a productive context to discuss gender and politics, without falling into the usual stereotypes? What does it mean to be billed as a female politician? Why did 53% of white women vote for Trump? Why does Jacob Rees-Mogg’s daughter have only one name, while his sons have several? Does a pink bus get you more interested in politics than a red or a yellow one?

Join us to discuss these and more questions at our third Digesting Politics in Birmingham.

14 July 2017, 6pm
Dinner at Collective Edinburgh

Free, book here

Following the final session of Collective’s summer school, Ground Meets Horizon, we’re celebrating the end of the week with a relaxed, free, meal. The event will be an opportunity to talk about politics over some delicious food and drinks. The day’s newspapers, from the Mail to the Guardian will be available, so if you don’t feel like talking you can also sit quietly in a corner, catching up on the news. If English is not your first language or you’d like to read a newspaper from another country, email Keep It Complex and they’ll try to buy a copy.

23 July 2017, 10.30 am
Brunch at Resort Studios Margate

Free, book here

We have invited local politicians, artists and campaigners to share a delicious Sunday morning brunch with us. So far our confirmed guests are Sir Roger Gale MP (Conservatives), Cllr Suzanne Brimm (UKIP), Cllr Barry Lewis and Cllr Karen Constantine (Labour) and John Finnegan (Lib Dems).

BYO opinions, food and activities will be provided. Children are very welcome. Let us know if you have any food allergies.

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The first series of Digesting Politics Lunches was financed thanks to an a-n bursary.