As a continuation of the work we’ve been doing with the Somerville Food Security Coalition we decided to join the fun at the Ignite food and fire festival this week. How did we combine food, fire and food security? We laser-cut facts about hunger and food security into vegetables and bread (It was fun to think about what veggies would give us the contrast we wanted between skin color and flesh color and which ones wouldn’t oxidize between Friday morning and Saturday evening.) We also ran a quick survey at the table about whether people had experienced hunger in their own homes and about where they’re buying fruits and vegetables now that Market Basket isn’t well-stocked. For survey responses we used M&Ms and raisins.

cucumber quote

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And, not surprisingly, between the M&Ms, the laser-cut veggies and the colorful data mural that we hung behind us, people came to talk. Even if they started out just trying to figure out how a quote made its way onto a cucumber, people read the information, asked questions and told us stories.

photo 3-3Once more, creative data presentation worked to engage the community in important (and interesting) conversations.  For more about this project read Data Therapy’s blog post.

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