Arts and Peace Festival

Food Fight: Prayer and Feasting
2009 Fraser Valley Arts and Peace Festival
 

“Food Fight – Prayer and Feasting” was the provocative theme for this year’s Fraser Valley Arts and Peace Festival.  Events held at various venues and using various artistic media, brought people together to explore the theme of food security.

“When discussing the topic of peace, one must look beyond the 'absence of conflict' and consider the well-being of people,” says Jon Nofziger, Peace Education Coordinator for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) BC, one of the festival sponsors. “’Shalom’ includes a healthy supply of nutrition. Today, one in six of our world's population does not have secure access to daily food for a variety of reasons.  In the Festival, we wanted to look at some of those reasons and challenge people to respond.”

The Festival began on Remembrance Day with a Peace Vespers service held at Emmanuel Mennonite Church, one of the festival sponsors. The service included choral and congregational singing, readings, prayers and embodied worship. A highlight of the evening for many was a prayer for peace for each continent that included prayers spoken in Japanese, Arabic, Farsi, Portuguese, English and an Aboriginal language. One person who hadn’t planned on attending and then did, sent an email of thanks: “This was real "food" for our hearts, minds, and souls!”

An art gallery at Columbia Bible College (CBC) included paintings, photography, collage and a thought-provoking piece of food art. A cheese burger and fries from a popular fast-food chain that had been purchased in June stood on a pillar next to a slice of week-old bread and slices of three-day-old potato. The fast-food didn’t have any mold on it whatsoever, while the fresh food had already turned black and was beginning to mold, raising questions about what it is we are eating and whether or not it is secure.

“That is both gross and thought-provoking,” said one CBC student who examined the art piece at length. “I’m not going to eat a cheese burger for a long time.”

The Festival also included a documentary film night, where participants watched then discussed the film “The Future of Food.”

Workshops on Friday dealt with food security issues including a workshop lead by Christina and Darnell Barkman titled “The Struggle for Food in Times of Conflict.” They explored the relationship between food scarcity and armed conflict drawing on their experience as peace workers in the war-torn land of Southern Philippines. While serving there, they witnessed the struggle for food that people experienced when conflict arose.

On Friday evening students and guests packed the CBC Commuter Lounger for a coffeehouse that featured poetry by Robert Martens and music by Joel Brandt and friends.

On Saturday, people had a practical opportunity to work at food security by volunteering at the Fraser Valley Gleaners in Abbotsford. The Gleaners make dried soup mix and dried apples for distribution to hungry people overseas. Vegetables and fruit are donated by local farmers and grocery stores. The donated food is deemed unsuitable for the local market because of its size or shape and would otherwise be thrown into a landfill. Participants spent the morning cutting food up and putting it on trays for drying.

The Festival ended on Sunday morning with guest Bruce Guenther, MCC Program Coordinator for MCC’s Food, Disaster and Material Resources, speaking at Langley Mennonite Fellowship on the topic of “Adapting to Food Scarcity.”

The Fraser Valley Arts and Peace Festival was sponsored by MCC, Columbia Bible College, Langley Mennonite Fellowship, Emmanuel Mennonite Church and Ploughshares Fraser Valley.