Tasting Tomorrow is a series of futuring workshops about food as a manifestation of Maltese and European diversity. Together with local experts and enthusiasts we explored the question “What might a thriving food culture in Malta look like?”

We searched for answers in the mapping of interesting food initiatives, through futurecrafting and prototyping speculative dishes and artefacts. Since all futures are rooted in the present, we wondered what was currently emerging or changing in Maltese food culture. How could these changes propagate in a range of possible futures? Which changes are already underway, what things might remain the same, and how would look different in 5, 50 or 500 years?

Our answers were elaborated into scenarios which pointed to several divergent futures. Signals in the present functioned as guiding lights or warning signs. In each of the vibrant scenarios, a “thriving food culture” took on varying forms and meaning; from colourful urban picnics, pirate spice raids and mutated street food, to food as medicine, drought resistant crops and rewilding of culinary traditions. Participants explored ways in which they could proactively contribute to the futures they prefer, while discovering ways to adapt to any future that may unfold. Bringing our speculations back to the present, we imagined how these futures could be prototyped today, how to make the stories tangible, edible and discussable. In a series of culinary prototyping sessions we cooked up menus from these alternate futures. Together with local artists, chefs, farmers and other food providers, scenarios were translated into stories, recipes, dishes and related miscellaneous objects, as if they had been reconstructed, preserved and archived by archeologists of a possible future.

• Tasting Tomorrow Fieldwork: an overview of the current situation and interesting food initiatives. Documentation from the workshop held on the 9th of March 2017
• Tasting Tomorrow Futurecrafting: signals and change drivers, towards food futures scenarios. Documentation from the workshop on the 27-28 April 2017
• Tasting Tomorrow Scenarios: short descriptions of four food futures scenarios
• Tasting Tomorrow Prototyping: design briefs and notes from (culinary) prototyping sessions, 1-4 May 2017
• Tasting Tomorrow Menu: food futures translated into the menu for the opening of the Archived Futures Harvest exhibition. 5 May 2017
• Tasting Tomorrow Recipes: dishes served at the exhibition opening

Tasting Tomorrow was developed by FoAM (Maja Kuzmanovic and Nik Gaffney), in collaboration with Time's Up, Greta Muscat Azzopardi, Natalie Debono and Gaby Giacchino, with contributions from Kurt Micallef, Letta Shtohryn, Johannes Buch, Kurt Misfud, Stephen La Rosa, Diemo Gebhardt, Studio Solipsis and the Tasting Tomorrow Fieldwork participants. Tasting Tomorrow is part of the Presents of the Future programme, curated by Time's Up, for the 2017 Maltese Presidency of the Council of the European Union with the support of Arts Council Malta and the Valletta 2018 Foundation.