Project duration: January 2018 – February 2019
Over the course of 2018 a group of communities with an interest in transforming how we buy, use and generate energy came together to hold a series of ‘utopian feasts’. These communal meals acted as a medium in which ideas of a better future, and how it might be achieved, could be explored, shared and evolved.
Of course, energy use and generation has multiple direct relationships with any meal: it underpins everything from the cooking and preparation, the food and drink consumed, to the surrounding infrastructure. But a communal meal also embodies how any one ‘sustainability’ issue cannot ultimately be kept separate from any other, or from the more intangible and unpredictable elements that otherwise sustain our lives.
Prior to the first ‘Feast’, those involved took part in two afternoons of workshops looking at the idea of ‘imagining the future’, ready for the feasts they hosted:
- The first feast took place before a gorgeous sunset and beneath an already-visible moon
- The second feast was hosted by Plymouth Energy Community in the historic Plymouth Athenaeum to celebrate their ‘PEC pals’ project
- The third feast took place at a renewable energy farm home in the Teign Valley near Newton Abbot, Devon, hosted by Teign Energy Communities
- The fourth feast was hosted by South Dartmoor Community Energy in Ivybridge Methodist Church.
The fifth and final feast, hosted by Tamar Energy Community, will take place in early 2019.
