Food fight to highlight food waste

In teen movies, a food fight is a shirt-staining way to resolve high school grievances – and splatter an entire cafeteria with projectile slop.

It can also be a weapon against social issues, as "Food Fight – the Battle for Food Security" is proving. The artist-led project is a C3West collaboration between the Museum of Contemporary Art, Liverpool City Council and Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre and the event will take place on Saturday, April 30 at Bigge Park in Liverpool.

"Art is no longer something confined within the museum and it's certainly no longer something that hangs in frames on walls," MCA director Liz Ann Macgregor said at a recent discussion about the project, hosted by the museum.

Like a multi-course dinner party, the event will involve many elements, "served up" by artists Diego Bonetto and Branch Nebula. There will be live cooking demos, "food security guards" delivering talks about nutrition, stalls by Knafeh Bakery, Wheelie Gourment and Chef Life – as well as information booths by Right to Food Coalition and Inspire Communities.

There will also be "Food Warriors", who will spend the night soapboxing about the social causes they advocate – but don't expect coma-inducing sermons delivered from a lectern. The warriors will be ferried around on sedan chairs while dressed in attention-seeking costumes. Diego Bonetto will be discussing his concerns about preserving edible plant knowledge while sporting an astroturf suit and a tall headdress full of sprouting leaves.

"My strength is in using strange materials to create wearable sculptures," costume designer Carlo Gomes says. "I always look at everyday objects, questioning 'Could I wear that?'"

Gomes must rock pantry items pretty well, because he has dressed Alexandra Ijadica in bustles fashioned from colanders – with spaghetti sticking out. As co-founder of the Youth Food Movement, she'll spend the event championing her cause of educating young people about nutritional skills and the importance of minimising food waste.

Because the headlining food fight takes place in an inflatable bubble, though, Gomes and collaborator Mirabelle Wouters had to make parts of the costume detachable – so it wouldn't puncture the setting.

"She'll shed the colander as she goes into battle," Macgregor quipped.

With food waste being a key topic, the fighters won't be slinging edible projectiles at each other, either. "We're using rescued food – food that's out of date, tinned food and soft food," says Branch Nebula's Lee Wilson, one of the artists behind the project.

And while Food Fight is a spectacle, it's meant to spark public conversations about otherwise hidden subjects – like the fact that 2 million Australians depend on food relief and nearly a million kids miss out on breakfast and dinner daily. And while food security means hunger is a daily constant for an increasing number of the population, Australians waste a staggering amount of food – the equivalent of ditching one out of every five shopping bags in the bin.

Other Food Warriors going into battle for the Food Fight project include Pastor Mick from Inspire Communities, who works in food relief; Paniora Nukunuku, who collaborates with OzHarvest; Liverpool City Council's Dany Ngov who will team up with Liverpool Girls High students to look at how policy change can address food security and Western Sydney University's Dr Jason Reynolds will cover wide-ranging topics – from making local produce accessible to the degradation of soil health in Sydney.

"How can we solve working poor situations when the cost of a lettuce, a carrot, continues to go up and up?" he says. "We're testing those soils in western Sydney and what do we find? Elevated lead, elevated cadmium.

"We can't just say, grow your own vegetables, everything will be fine. We need better ways to think about these problems."

These topics may be tough to consider, but Food Fight is giving these concerns a more appetising approach that people can engage with by turning up to Bigge Park and taking part.

As Macgregor says, "It's not a conference, it's an artistic event."

Food Fight – the Battle for Food Security' free entry, 5pm-9pm, Bigge Park, Liverpool (or Whitlam Leisure Centre, 90A Memorial Avenue, Liverpool if it rains), foodfight.org.au