Urban Food Mapping: Making Visible the Edible City

On 19 March 2024 Routledge launched their latest title 'Urban Food Mapping: Making Visible the Edible City'. This is a particular pleasure as my co-writer (Nina Yiu) and I have a chapter included in the book.

As Routledge states on their website:

'With cities becoming so vast, so entangled and perhaps so critically unsustainable, there is an urgent need for clarity around the subject of how we feed ourselves as an urban species. Urban food mapping becomes the tool to investigate the spatial relationships, gaps, scales and systems that underlie and generate what, where and how we eat, highlighting current and potential ways to (re)connect with out diet, ourselves and our environments.

Richly explored, using over 200 mapping images in 25 selected chapters, this book identifies urban food mapping as a distinct activity and area of research that enables a more nuanced way of understanding the multiple issues facing contemporary urbanism and the manyfold roles food spaces play within it. The authors of this multidisciplinary volume extend their approaches to place making, storytelling, in-depth observation and imagining liveable futures and engagement around food systems, thereby providing a comprehensive picture of our daily food flows and intrastructures. Their images and essays combine theoretical, methodological and practical analysis and applications to examine food through innovative map-making that empowers communities and inspires food planning authorities. The first book to systematise urban food mapping showcases and bridges disciplinary boundaries to make theoretical concepts as well as practical experiences and issues accessible and attractive to a wide audience, from the activist to the academic, the professional and the amateur. It will be of interest to those involved in the all-important work around food cultures, food security, urban agriculture, land rights, environmental planning and design who wish to create a more beautiful, equitable and sustainable urban environment.'

Book Cover Image

Further details on the book can be found on Routledge's website here.

...or on Amazon's website here.

It has been quite a journey for us from the initial exploratory walks within the Phu My Hung area of District 7 in Ho Chi Minh City (previously Saigon), Vietnam to the eventual publication of the book chapter that is included within this wonderful compilation. All the work that has been done, including drafting, drawing, revisions rewrites...have all been worth it and the two editors, Katrin Bohn and Mickey Tomkins should be very proud of this contribution to the field. The final pleasure now is for us to read and discover the work all the other contributors have been engaged with. 

The abstract to our chapter runs as follows:

Walking out for Dinner: Discovering and mapping food choices in Saigon

 

This chapter outlines a perambulatory project undertaken in District 7 of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam, in which the two authors set out to discover the extent of food choices that are discoverable on foot within a local area of the city. 
 
The project builds upon previous work mapping the varieties of ambient colours that could be recorded while walking within the same part of Saigon. This information was collated into a map of the area indicating where each colour was collected. 
It is intended to collate the current project data into an alternative map of the same area within the city.
District 7 is a relatively new area in the city, developed to cater for the growing population of the city. This district is comprised predominantly of wealthy Vietnamese with the addition of a large percentage of Koreans along with numbers of Taiwanese, Indian and Western expats.
 
Developing out of a series of walking-based art projects, the plan is to set out on foot each day during the same week, Monday to Friday, in order to discover the incidence and popularity of different types of food available to cater for the multi-cultural nature of the local residents. 
At the end of the week, the collected data will be combined into a map displaying the geographical location and the number of each type of food establishment discovered during the five walks. The resulting cartographic image would employ colours and graphic notation to differentiate the various cuisine choices. 
 
Keywords: Walking Art, Conceptual Cartography, Psychogeography

The completed book revealed 

'20 Minute Diameter Leeds' - Terminalia Festival 2023

 As part of 4WCoP 2022 (Fourth World Congress of Psychogeography), Mathilda Guerin created a project entitled 'Walking Webs', inviting people to participate by creating a walking web of their own city and I created my own walking web in Leeds, my home town in the UK. 

My walking web was created, according to the supplied instructions, by walking from a selected starting point, North, South East and West. Along each of these axes, we were asked to walk for 10 minutes and 20 minutes respectively and to take a photograph at each of these points. It was then possible to connect up all four of the 10 minute points and also the 20 points.

My walking web, and the photos taken after walking for 10 minutes and 20 minutes can be seen here:

Walking Web showing the Starting Point, 10 Minute and 20 Minute Points

Walking Web showing the photographs taken at all the points

I try to participate in the annual Terminalia Festival each year and so for the 2023 edition I chose part of the walking web I had created previously as this conveniently marks out an area of the city with a perimeter roughly 10 minutes from the centre.

On Thursday 23 February 2023 I started walking from the northern point, close to the College of Building on North Street, walking clockwise. 

North to East Section

North Street - Byron Street - Regent Street - Hope Road - Mabgate - St. Mary's Street - Rider Street - Burmantofts Street - Marsh Lane

Millwright Street, just off Hope Road

Sheepscar Beck (or Mabgate Beck), before it becomes Lady Beck

Grade II listed Hope Foundry (1831-1850), a former brass and iron foundry

St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, Grade II listed

Pedestrian Crossing to Quarry House, Department of Health

East to South Section

Marsh Lane - Crown Point Bridge - Crown Point Road - Great Wilson Street 

Car park entrance / exit on Marsh Lane, not far from the old railway station

Penny Pocket Park, previously St. Peter's Graveyard

River Aire, looking West from Crown Point Bridge

South to East Section

Great Wilson Street - Water Lane - Wharf Approach - Leeds Liverpool Canal Towpath - Whitehall Waterfront - Whitehall Road - Northern Street

'Hello Friends' by Bryan and Laura Davies, 2007. 

Inspired by Brancusi's Endless Column, 1937 and installed inside Bridgewater Place

Glimpse of the beautiful grade II listed 'Verona' Tower (based on the Lamberti Tower in Verona), originally built as dust extractors for the nearby steel pin factory, the first of the three Italianate towers to be built on the site that is rapidly becoming the new 'Tower Works' residential development

Another view of River Aire, this time looking South West from the new bridge linking Pocket Park to the Whitehall Riverside Terraces

East to North Section

Wellington Street - Britannia Street - York Place - King Street - East Parade - Victoria Square - Calverley Street - Great George Street - Cookridge Street - Merrion Way - Lovell Park Road - Grafton Street - North Street

Inexplicably ignored and unattributed artwork by Joseph Beuys, outside Leeds Art Gallery & Henry Moore Centre, part of his 7,000 Oaks work.

Leeds Owls on parade along the Calverley Street facade of Leeds Central Library

Colourful objects sit playfully in Lovell Park, previously a cattle market (c.1860)

This one-day Festival of Psychogeography has been held every year on the 23rd of February since 2011 and brings together individuals and groups who mark the Festival of Terminus, the Roman god of boundaries and landmarks.

Previous walks for Terminalia:

The Old Town to the Quay - 2022

Saigon Canal Walk - 2020

Saigon Citadel Walk - 2019

Summer Solstice Walk 2022

 As part of his '52 More' walking project, Blake Morris invited people to walk on the summer solstice, Tuesday 21st June at whatever time was convenient. 

The walking 'score' for the day was created by Melanie Mowinski and participants were invited to interpret the contents of the score as they walked their chosen route at their chosen time. The way these scores can be interpreted in a multitude of ways has fascinated me since I began following and creating them. 

My chosen route on this occasion was a short section of the Leeds - Liverpool Canal, beginning at Granary Wharf, walking west toward Armley. 

To engage with this activity, try to match up some of the lines in the score with what was observed in the images below. What did you notice?

The walking score created by Melanie Mowinski

The final lock gate that opens onto the River Aire

The basin at Granary Wharf, looking towards the final lock gates

Way-marker on the Desmond Family Canoe Trail

Emerging from under the rail track viaduct

Looking back under the main rail tracks entering Leeds Station

Grafitti decorated wall separates the rail tracks from the canal

Four routes line up: The rail tracks, the canal, 

the tow path and the River Aire on the left

Passing under the Monk Bridge Viaduct that once 

carried trains into the old Leeds Central Station 

Sid and Nancy with their six cygnets, 

local celebrities now thanks to Facebook 

Approaching St. Ann Ings Lock Gates

Moorhen family raising their five chicks by the tow path

Beautiful wild teasels, with fully-spent flower heads

 

Gorgeous wooden posts along the tow path

I bet the birds love these berries

Portage this way, don't forget your two-person canoe

Next to the new, there is the old attempting to retain dignity. 

Let's hope it survives

On our return to Granary Square, 

a female mallard duck challenges us to a race

Back at the bridge next to lock no. 2, 

bathed in the lovely afternoon sunshine

'No holiday', Hoan Kiem Lake, Hanoi, Vietnam

This recorded version of the performance 'No holiday' was conducted around Hoan Kiem Lake (Sword Lake) in Hanoi, Vietnam on 7th April, 2021.

Although overcast, it was a lovely warm day for a walk around the small lake in Vietnam's capital.

I walked anti-clockwise around the lake, beginning at the southern end close to Trang Thi and continued strolling slowly along until I had almost completed one full circuit of the lake.  

The film concludes as I continue on my way along Lai Thai To. 

A video of the performance is embedded below or, alternatively, you can view it on my Youtube channel.

'Experience Mapping' at 4WCoP 2021

The annual Fourth World Congress of Psychogeography was held this year on Saturday 4th and 5th September 2021. For this event Dr. Nina Yiu and I proposed a project we called 'Experience Mapping' that aimed to record the collective experience of participating in the congress. 

Maps are often depictions of actual locations, a record of the activities of a person or group of people, or even directions enabling someone to arrive at an intended location.

Rather than creating a map of the actual locations around Huddersfield University and its environs, we wanted to collate the experiences of different participants during the weekend, wherever they were, and combine them into a virtual map that could represent the collective experience of participants of the 'Experience Mapping' project. 

This approach required us to invite participants to take photographs of their activities sometime during the weekend of the congress and to send them to Nina and I, along with a note of the time the photograph was taken and a comment about the feeling at the time or a description of the environment. 

These photographs would then be transformed into drawn images and subsequently incorporated into a map that integrated the disparate elements into a seemingly logical map.

Nina and I presented the project concept on Saturday 4th September at 10:00am, and a recording of the presentation can be viewed below (or viewed at https://youtu.be/Ead6fwzgYY8)

Project presentation at 4WCoP 2021, 4th September 2021

Five people eventually responded to the open call by submitting photographs: Elspeth Billie Penfold, Sonia Overall, Aled Singleton, Steve Goldman, and Time Chapman. In total, we had twelve photographs to work with.

The first stage was to transform the photographs into graphic images by hand. As this process took some time, it allowed us gain a 'feeling' for the image and what was being captured, almost as if we were there ourselves, quite a lyrical approach we discovered. These days most of us are under pressure from deadlines and it is not often that we find ourselves with the luxury of patience. 

Being patient is sometimes what is required and in this project it was essential. The entire process was also unexpectedly delayed when fate intervened, and an unexpected family bereavement brought the process to a halt. It was several months before we were able to establish the correct frame of mind to retrace the previous thought processes.

As the images were created one-by-one, they were juxtaposed each time and a story gradually began to reveal itself as the images accumulated, and this emerging story became the guideline we used when composing the final map.

The 'Experience Mapping' project was a pilot project as it was the first time that it had been tried. There was inevitably a learning curve to negotiate within the process. In future, it is hoped, more complex maps would be attempted, if the opportunity arose.

Below are the twelve photographs used as the inspiration for the map, the twelve images transformed into hand-drawn images, and finally a screen-capture of the resolved map.

The twelve photographs submitted to the project

The twelve drawings created in response to the photographs

The final map as an A3 pdf

A recording of the congress final plenary session was made and can be viewed here, or below: