Systems Archives — The Common Table

A Taste for Microplastics

17. November 2025
10 minute read

Microplastic pollution expert Dr Sherri Mason talks to The Common Table about the pervasive presence of tiny plastic particles within the planet’s ecosystems and why we are being encouraged to keep adding more, not less, of them to our food and soils.

Transparent Tuna

2. October 2025
11 minute read

William Harris talks to Cynthia Asaf of Pacifical about using digital traceability to improve transparency in the Pacific tuna supply chain and why it's a game-changer for the fishing industry.

Food Design, It’s Complicated

6. August 2025
17 minute read

Can Food Design improve our relationships with food or is it just a grandiose term for decorative plating? Leading voices in Food & Design, Priya Mani, Sonia Massari, Fabio Parasecoli, Laila Snevele, and Sophie Lovell confer at a communal table moderated by our own Orlando Lovell.

still from the documentary The Edible Indian by Cass Gardiner showing a Native American family sharing a meal in a forest

The Good Life

10. July 2025
20 minute read

First Nations filmmaker and curator Cass Gardiner talks to The Common Table about stewardship, reciprocity, the bittersweet aspect of "home", and how she uses food to open a window for non-Native people into her world and community.

Change the (Design) System

1. June 2025
8 minute read

A conversation with Systems Change Designer Ashley Scarborough about how she redesigned her own professional path and found food systems as her medium.

A Game of Monopoly

30. May 2025
10 minute read

We talk to Canadian political economist Jennifer Clapp about her latest book, “Titans of Industrial Agriculture” and the evolution of an extreme concentration of power that has allowed 12 companies to control most of the world's food production.

Ancient Grains & Other Myths

26. February 2025
10 minute read

Fabio Aranzulla and Luca Cinquemani, are an artistic duo going by the name of Aterraterra. Their work intersects art and agricultural practices, questioning accepted narratives within agriculture and food cultures.

Gastronativism: Us & Them

1. February 2025
12 minute read

Food Studies professor Fabio Parasecoli on gastronativism, the "ideological use of food in politics to advance ideas about who belongs to a community". A conversation about "us", "them", food, politics, and systemic thinking.

Territorial Stomachs & Other Future Foodscapes

12. December 2024
4 minute read

The Future Foodscapes Research Unit rethinks the future of the planetary food system through research and speculative projects, one of which explores the viewpoint of the kitchen as an externalised stomach.