The research questions are: 

• How arts-based research can foster transforming food value systems in educational communities?

• How hands-on and place-based strategies promote a sense of belonging, and the desire for more accessible and healthy food systems?

The objectives of the research are: 

- Strengthen the sense of belonging of children (and the educational community) in Salt, with special attention to the Orchards in Salt, through arts-based research.

- Strengthen the link between educational communities and the Orchards in Salt through hands-on and plase-based strategiesFood consumption in urban areas is articulated into a highly complex and specialised distribution scheme, with an almost exclusive dependence on long and distant supply chains. In the context of climate change such dependency creates unprecedented and unnecessary pressures on the resource supply, transportation, and logistics, thus challenging the resilience of a system almost exclusively dependent on external supply - with the additional ethical

and sustainability questions that arise from increasingly transferring the negative impacts of industrial food production and provision away from cities to other areas (Jensen, P. D., & Orfila, 2021). Additionally, sustainable urban food options, which include e.g., healthy eating, access to green spaces and the equal provision of climate-resilient urban infrastructures (Rutt & Gulsrud, 2016) are often inaccessible to wider portions of the urban population. This is an economic, social, and infrastructural problem, where the poor integration of the urban food system (and related green infrastructure) with the built environment is both a major source of food insecurity (Oscilowicz et al., 2022) and a barrier to the pursuit of environmental justice in cities (Penne, & Goedemé, 2021).

Innovative examples of urban strategies for sustainable and healthy food already exist (e.g., the De Cunto et al. “Food in cities” report provided evidence from the Eurocities network in 2017). Cities have demonstrated their central role during the pandemic in ensuring access to food for citizens and supporting retailers (Eurocities, 2021). Local food production and food security has also been on the EU’s agenda, which has - among others - facilitated knowledge

exchange between cities on sustainable local food systems through its URBACT network (n.d.). However, consolidated best practices and emerging experimentations remain sporadic, and lack an overarching forum as well as a systemic framework for learning, knowledge exchange, and innovation transfer.

Upon this framework, the European Research project "REDESIGN - transformative food value systems that remodel resilient urban landscapes" (https://horizon-redesign.eu ) aims to identify and develop strategies to transform urban food systems, incorporating local, social, and cultural values, specially to make the local food system inclusive and accessible, fostering environmental justice and food justice in cities through participatory approaches that include vulnerable communities. One of the project’s lines of research focuses on creating three Living Labs in three different European cities. One Living Lab is developed in Salt (Spain), and one of the vulnerable target groups is children. 

Being aware of the potential of the arts for enhancing understanding (Barone and Eisner, 2012); fostering awareness of ethical dimensions in food production and consumption in communities (Juhola et al., 2024; Roe & Buser, 2016) and children’s engagement and commitment to the current ecological crisis (Bentz & O’Brian, 2019). This paper focuses on the part of the research project developed with schools, and how children and, by extension, the whole educational community can transform their food value systems through developing an arts-educational project.

- Raise awareness about healthy habits linked to food systems, addressing the processes of production, transport and consumption.

- Influence the transformation of the values ​​of the food systems of the educational community, incorporating criteria of health, sustainability and roots in the territory.

To respond to the challenges exposed, an arts-based research approach (Barone and Eisner, 2012) is proposed. This epistemological approach acknowledges the potential and value of the arts to produce other forms of knowledge - knowledge that cannot be generated through more positivist or conventional qualitative research perspectives (Hernández-Hernández, 2008). This is carried out with the educational community of four schools in Salt. Mainly, we work with groups of children from different grades, aged between 5 and 11, and a group of teachers from the four schools. The fieldwork process is splitted in 2 phases: First phase (February - June 2026): Approaching Food Value Systems with educational communities though arts based methods. Second phase: Co-creating events with educational communities to disseminate from an artistic point of view the experience of the first phase and raise awareness about Food Value Systems among citizens of Salt. Since we are starting the first phase, we have developed arts-based proposals with the aim of contributing to the transformation of the values ​​of the food systems of the educational communities. These proposals include elements of food education covering the entire process of the food chain: from cultivation to harvesting (including visits to orchards of Salt), and consumption of food, including edible and medicinal herbs found in the Hortes de Salt. In detail, we have split the proposals into 3 blocks. Origin of food: the gardens of Salt (7 sessions) The foods we consume: where do they come from? Are they healthy? (3 sessions) Final assessment (3 sessions) The data collected to respond to the two main questions of this paper will be based on the following methods: Questionnaire to be completed at the beginning and at the end of this phase: it will include questions about food habits linked to health Filmic documentation of the pedagogical processes: researchers and the participants will visually document their learning processes with the aim to create material to disseminate the experiences, as well as, to foster group cohesion (Onsès, 2018) Artistic materials created by students: such as herbariums, cartographies, drawings, art installations, etc (Riera-Retamero et al., 2021). Artographic fieldnotes: researchers will register observations and inquiries in a diary that entangles their subjectivity as artists, teachers, and researchers (Blasco Aguirre, 2024; Onsès-Segarra, 2025).

Since the fieldwork has not yet been realized, but it will be by the ECER conference in August, we expect the results to respond to the main questions of the paper while achieving the already mentioned following outcomes: Strengthen the sense of belonging of children (and the educational community) of Orchards in Salt, in a way that they appropriate that urban territory and feel as theirs. Raise awareness about healthy habits linked to food systems, addressing the processes of production, transport and consumption. Changes in the home menus, and also the places where families buy food (local markets, agroshops, groups of consumers, etc.) Influence the transformation of the values ​​of the food systems of the educational community, incorporating criteria of health, sustainability and roots in the territory.

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