Food Journeys (2023-24)
In summer 2023, after a series of hearing sessions from community partners, C21 piloted the Story Cart, a mobile sculpture designed and fabricated by UWM artist Glenn Williams. The Story Cart aimed to create a space to invite conversation about the Center’s annual themes, weighing in on the expertise of the general public. With the help of the Summer Project Fellow team and 20 different community partners, the Story Cart visited over 25 different sites across Milwaukee County, collecting over 10 hours of audio-recorded stories from 175 different storytellers. The stories collected featured concerns about food access, trust in food systems, and meaningful foods that foster connectedness.
Through the Milwaukee Food Council’s Food Justice Initiative, Story Cart: Food Journeys was funded in part by the USDA’s Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program – SNAP with additional support from UWM’s College of Letters & Sciences and Center for 21st Century Studies, The Table, and Alice’s Garden.
Questions About Food Access
During interviews, six main questions were asked by the Story Cart team:
- Where do you most commonly gather your food (name, location if possible)?
- In as much detail as possible, describe your journey to and from the place where you gather food (how do you get there, how far is it?).
- What food would you grow if you could?
- Describe your dream garden plot.
- When you think of trust, what is a taste or recipe that comes to mind?
- Tell us about a food that is special to you. What makes it special?
These questions captured memories, revealed meaningful connections to each other, led to conversations about food access, documented the importance of knowing where our food comes from, and expressed the concerns people have about their food.
Stories About Food Access
Check out a sample interview from Story Cart: Food Journey’s below. Additional select Food Journeys interviews can be found here.
Coming Soon: The complete Food Journeys story archive!