the land is a social and agricultural experiment centered around degrowth, community and sharing. it is a space to learn, teach, grow, retreat, rest, and connect. the land facilitates connection to people, land, food, knowledge and above all, community.
the main intention of our events is to foster a sense of community through and around food. we have been inspired by the work of gordon matta clark and his conceptual restaurant food in nyc in the 1970s, a space that fostered community through affordable and experimental food. similarly, we have been inspired by “commons dinners” such as those described by italian scholar massimo de angelis:
we would like to facilitate these types of environments within amsterdam, as we feel that for all of the diversity that exists within the city, it can often feel quite siloed. our aim is to use food as a means to bring people together in a way that is not sterile or forceful, but rather one that is warm and inviting.
“Take a village party in the Appenines near Modena. Every summer a long table is set up along the main village road spanning about 50 or 60 metres, and about twenty people are involved in cooking and serving food and drinks for up to two hundred guests. Clearly, if we all help to dispose of the tables and clean up afterwards, the work per head will be less. But then, another village could organise another party, and the cooks would become dinner guests. Free lunches may not exist in capitalist economies (a fact we are reminded of by Milton Friedman), but they often do in the commons, if we accept responsibility for them, and understand that the gains in conviviality, community cohesiveness and boundaries opening to the outside, to other commoners, are worthy goals!”