Where does your food come from?
Barbot Bernardo and Saber Fazer hosted roundtable and vegan lunch by Venn Canteen (photo gallery)
Photos: Miguel Barbot
Before we start, a big shout out to Mariana, our box-to-box midfielder, who was indefatigable in the organisation of the event!
Yesterday, April 29th, we brought our community together at Saber Fazer for one conversation around food politics, agro-ecology and education.
Organised for the TY-CO project and in line with the ABR Festival's focus on sustainability and local culture, the afternoon traced the journey of food from local producers to the table, and asked a simple but uncomfortable question: what do our food choices really cost?
Monika and Snider doing their magic.
The roundtable opened the session, with Snider Rodrigues and Monika Błoch from Venn Canteen, Pedro Rocha from O Quinto Elemento (and many other food things), and Ana Helena Pinto from Nutrition for Happiness in conversation, moderated by our dear friend Sofia Ferraz from Tasteology and one of the masterminds of the fabulous Porto (and Lisbon) Coffee Week.
Then came a short break to clear the table, set the space, and let Venn Canteen do what they do best. Venn Canteen served a vegan lunch that did the conversation justice.
Vibes at Saber Fazer square table.
The full conversation was recorded and will be released as an episode of our Ossos do Ofício podcast (we have 4 episodes recorded and ready to be releases, so stay tuned!)
We are also putting together a fanzine with the key takeaways from the roundtable, opinion pieces from the participants, and contributions from the crowd who was in the room. Will the good folks from Venn Canteen share a few recipes with us?
This event and the content we will create after, are part of TY-CO, an initiative built around the ABR Festival's audience and community, with activities and events running year-round in Cyprus and beyond, including in Porto and Lisbon.
ABR Fest 2025, the bi-annual festival formerly known as Afrobanana Festival, is the anchor, but TY-CO extends well past the festival dates and across geographies. The food roundtable and lunch at Saber Fazer was one of those extensions.
You can read about our 2025 trip to the festival here.
About TY-CO
TY-CO is an EU Project Funded under the Creative Europe Programme CREA-CULT-2024-COOP-1. The project is a transcultural collaboration between ABR-Alternative Brains Rule (CY), Barbot Bernardo (PT), Arroz Estudios (PT), Loonatiks Design Crew (GR).
Our commitment is to remain endlessly open-minded — to new audiences and new voices so that together we can come up with new ways of thriving in a challenged cultural landscape.
Audience Engagement, Year-Round
Through intimate pop-ups, partner country activations, and interactive storytelling, we build ongoing conversations — not just crowds. It's a living narrative that leads to the festival and beyond.
Creative Expression—Plug-in Projects
We reimagine what a festival community looks like. Through research-driven collaborations with local and global initiatives, we expand the AfroBanana ethos into new formats, places, and publics.
Networking & Policy-Shifting
TY-CO connects a global web of like-minded festivals, collectives, and creators, creating fertile ground for collective resilience and culture-driven policy change.
