SWAT: THE GARDEN AND THE SNAKE. A reflection on a story of food

The text introduce a residency activity connected to the CPF-British Council funded activity on the Heritage of the Swat valley. What happens when artists and academics meet in one of the most geographically and historically rich regions in Pakistan? To explore and document the lower region of Swat, a chef, a photographer, an illustrator, and an anthropologist came together for the Wild Grains and Sacred Herbs Residency. The residency was shaped by different ways of listening to the land ~ through cooking, imagining, drawing, walking, observing, and conversation. Instead of approaching heritage as something fixed or monumental, the work focused on lived rhythms and everyday practices: food prepared by season, knowledge shared in homes, and gestures repeated across timelines. These ways of working allow heritage to be re-membered through use and presence, grounded in daily life rather than distant histories.