Methods Lab 2009-2010
10-11 November 2009, Royal College of Art
Community recipe book
The team was inspired by their creative partner Gav, who introduced the team to his Multiple Scerosis (MS) by showing some films he had made and also demonstrating some side effects of his MS, such as foot drop (an upward turning-in of the ankle and toes).
One of the more interesting things Gav told the team was about his concept of energy rationing: when people have MS, they are very aware of the total amount of energy their body has and the amount of energy it takes to do normal everyday activities, such as going to buy some milk.
The team found interesting parallels between this way of thinking about energy use in the body and the way people think about energy use in general. Shirley, another creative partner who is in her 70s, described how her community worked together to share basic services for the concept of a book called 'Recipes for a Good Neighbourhood'.
This book was intended to promote local communities by encouraging neighbours to share activities, such as going out to get milk, sharing magazine subscriptions or helping to put out the recycling. Sharing resources such as these would mean people would become aware of those living around them and would be more likely to look out for them, secondly it would promote a local ethos where more would be shared.
The book provides ideas for events that could be organised to meet neighbours. It could also be used as a sourcebook of suggestions of what could be done to help one another. The book was intended as a start-up tool, with the movement promoted through radio and local initiatives. As the movement generates popularity it was envisaged ideas could be shared via on-line platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.
