Detailed project description
Live Kitchen is an open-air space that invites multiple forms of life to connect through art and food. The project aims to spark critical reflection on issues such as the systems that feed us and the disconnection that characterizes city life, while promoting dialogue across disciplines to nurture ideas of community, connection, and sharing.
Live Kitchen brings together humans and non- humans of all ages, genders, and backgrounds. It is a kitchen that intertwines relationships among people, butterflies, ladybugs,bees, flowers, germinated seeds, and even microorganisms. With this project, we seek to explore the possibilities that interdisciplinary collaboration offers for imagining new worlds and new ways of living in cooperation and community. As Donna Haraway reminds us, “We become with each other or not at all” (Staying With the Trouble, 2016, p. 4).
We work with materials such as discarded marble and terracotta — ecological elements that encourage us to imagine new possible worlds and more conscious, grounded approaches to food. The project also experiments with choreographed gestures of care, where different species thrive in the symbiotic relationships proposed by a living kitchen.
Marble pieces considered unusable are the starting point for the construction of the kitchen. Between them, various species feed this space: diverse flowers, germinated seeds, and aromatic herbs grow among the stones or in terracotta vessels, attracting butterflies, bees, and other pollinators.
The artistic ecosystem (WIP)
An artistic and multidisciplinary ecosystem forms the final composition of this project.
At its centre lies the Live Kitchen, a space for gathering and exchange, surrounded by food-production satellites and multifunctional marble stones that occupy the surrounding area — serving both as seating and as surfaces for preparing and flavouring the diverse programme of events.
Other elements of this ecosystem include two video screens showing time-lapse recordings of the growth of sprouts and plants. Inspired by the early works of F. Percy Smith (1880–1944) from the 1910s, these films challenge our notion of time, inviting us to pause and reflect.
Another presence in this project is sound: natural sounds are amplified and transformed by artist Nuno da Luz in a continuous, gentle performance that awakens another sense and allows for an immersive, sensorial experience.
The Live Kitchen becomes a stage for a diverse, multidisciplinary
Programme:
Conscious and sustainable gastronomic moments accompany the entire event — featuring plant-based, zero-waste, and ecological food. Music for Flowers fills the space with the delicate touch of pianist Joana Gama, while other moments invite listening and reflection — including a story on the ecology of food by writer Joana Bértholo, and a conversation with programmer and researcher Sara Orsi and architect-researcher Mariana S. Salvador.
Galician dancer and performer Ángela D. Quintela, who has also expressed interest in participating, will highlight the gestures and choreographies of care that a living kitchen both requires and inspires.
