With the metaphor of “growing the pie” being back in use by the UK Government, the Larks & Ravens are busy playing with pies, dinner parties, surprising guests, values, fairness, deserving and undeserving, alter egos, knives, gloves and the occasional crocodile. Step by step it’s building towards something….
Our first experimental pie-economics supper (April 2023)
We have just run our first experimental Pie Supper at https://bricksbristol.org/ for 4 invited guests to use art and sharing a pie supper to generate conversations about how to divide a pie in a fair way. Politicians and economists often talk about “growing the pie” so everyone gets “a larger slice” – but does that actually happen? How do you divide a pie fairly? What happens in your home? Who deserves (or doesn’t deserve) what size of slice and why??
In preparation, alongside honing our pie making skills & recipes, we found ourselves creating 3 lifesize “gods” to oversee the suppers, namely: Death, Lady Justice & Lady Luck – each bringing their own mythical perspective to fair pie sharing. How do we balance the power of Lady Justice carefully weighing the deserving vs the undeserving with the capricious Lady Luck handing out fortune on the basis of luck alone?
And how does awareness of our own mortality shape what we value in life? Death emerged as a highly relatable character and actually joined us for a seat at the table.
Before we ate, we each created something to bring to the table pertinent to our discussion. A fascinating collection of collage, sculpture, a poem and a drawing inspired new thinking and perspectives and a discussion about who we might add to the growing pantheon of gods.
One guest suggested that rather than selecting someone to divide the pie, we should all help ourselves. This led to debating not just the size of any slice but also preferences for more or less pastry. It transpired that not all slices have the same value for everyone! And how much pie any one person wanted or needed also varied along with concern about how our preferences and choices affected others.
Many disparate flavours emerged from our pie munching discussions. Calculating each size of slice as a numbers’ game (as economists and political budgets do) felt absurd as it hides or even distorts the plethora of variables which matter in the diverse reality of individual lives. As one guest remarked, she wasn’t interested in a pie slice based on financial wealth but on a slice of an alternative pie based maybe on freedom, adventure and community. Can we imagine such a pie?
We’d like to thank Bricks for allowing us to use their fantastic space for this event. The Larks & Ravens are now reflecting on this first supper and planning the possible where, who, and how of the next one.
The Larks and Ravens 