If "parties always end in the kitchen", it's because we cook much more than just food there. Every Thursday of the festival, two artists or collectives engage in conversation around cooking in the KVS foyer. These meetings are an opportunity to reflect together on the role the kitchen plays in our imagination and in our daily lives: a space where several geographies and stories that we have inherited from the past converge; a space for collective experimentation, sometimes used as a place of meeting and political dissidence; a space for work, spontaneous encounters, transmission and reflection on the future. A programme developed in partnership between Kunstenfestivaldesarts, KANAL-Centre Pompidou and CIVA as part of the Free School and The World History of the Commons, curated with Silvia Franceschini and Grégory Castéra. The conversation between Michael Rakowitz and The Kitchen is part of Palestine Between Words and Silences.

Cooking Sections & Bakudapan

16.05, 18:00

English | 1h30 | Free entrance

In the Climavore project, the Cooking Sections collective advocates for an adaptable, regenerative approach to eating – a transformation in how we consume, engage with and produce food aimed at environmental wellbeing amid the climate crisis. Through the format of a food study group, Yogyakarta-based collective Bakudapan focuses on preserving local food knowledge and envisions this as a pathway to food sovereignty. Both collectives view food as a catalyst for change across various realms, including politics, social dynamics, ecology and dietary culture. This conversation will bring the two collectives together for the first time, as they explore the intricate connection between food and environmental, economic and social concerns, prompting us to reconsider our relationship with food and its impacts on the world around us.

Michael Rakowitz & The Kitchen

23.05, 18:00 | Free entrance

Michael Rakowitz has put the relationship between cuisine and politics at the heart of his practice. Raised in the United States by a family of Iraqi origin, over the years he has worked on sharing ancient recipes from Baghdad, for instance in the Enemy Kitchen projects, and disseminating the culinary culture of Iraq during the years of the US invasion. Artists Reem Shilleh and Mohanad Yaqubi – members of the Subversive Film Collective and co-founders of the Brussels-based organisation The Kitchen – are currently conducting research on the space of the kitchen as a place of subversive gatherings within militant and revolutionary movements in Palestine. The kitchen table becomes a place of political resistance, solidarity and narratives transmitted through the act of cooking.

Mounira Al Solh, Luigi Coppola & Atlas of Oven

30.05, 18:00 | Free entrance

Ovens and miles can play a central role in activating communities and fostering regenerative processes of territorial transformation. In her life and practice, artist Mounira Al Solh has reflected on the idea of a bakery as a social project. In Atlas of Ovens, Ciel Grommen, Maximiliaan Royakkers and Clémentine Vaultier investigate oven infrastructures in Belgium as relational infrastructures. In the project Casa delle Agriculture in Puglia, Italy, Luigi Coppola seeks to revitalise abandoned land and repopulate the countryside by generating a sustainable economy and highlighting the importance of commoning dynamics within the community of migrants, farmers and activists. This conversation will present their projects while exploring the intersection of art with agro-ecological learning through participatory practices and community-oriented projects.