Municipal Kitchens

For two weeks, we had the pleasure of bringing the Municipal Kitchens to life at the nGbK gallery in Berlin, a space for experimentation and community. Curated by Cherry Truluck, Municipal Kitchens brought together collectives and organizations dedicated to agroecology, food policy, and participatory art to highlight inequalities in food systems and explore new ways of building community. The event transformed the nGbK gallery into a public kitchen, taking over the space of a former fast-food restaurant in Alexanderplatz and filling it with gatherings, dialogues, and free community meals.

Following the cyclical rhythm of the milpa, we carried out activities that reflect the rhythms of the land: planting, harvesting, cooking, exchanging, and celebrating. Special emphasis was placed on the temporality of foods for harvesting and preparation. We shared fundamental concepts of our practice: assembly, celebration, archive, tequio, radio, and the meeting of biocultural knowledge. The conversation was brought to the table to reflect on slow cooking, seasonal changes, and reciprocity.

The milpa, an agroecological consortium of corn, beans, squash, chilies, and tomatoes, is not just a productive technology, but also a technology of sustenance, a language, and an ontological perspective, a space to enable the pluriverse. In contrast to homogenizing models, the pluriverse acknowledges the coexistence of multiple realities, knowledge systems, and ways of being. Both the milpa and the pluriverse are embedded in a set of practices situated in the Global South, especially in Mesoamerica, from where Cocina Colaboratorio has learned to build a transdisciplinary and situated practice.

To host the pluriverse of the milpa at nGbk, we created a space for slow cooking, where time allowed for interactions outside the logic of current food systems and the fast pace of the city. We built a map inspired by the milpa, an archive of cooking practices and sound stories, with exchanges inside and outside the gallery, connecting and spreading practices with other spaces and collectives.

The radio, Radio Cocina Colaboratorio, was a mobile tool that strengthened the ties between the gallery and the outside, recording moments of exchange in various spaces around the city. The Mobile Radio sessions were broadcast live through the internet radio transmitter: mensajito.mx, which allowed for dialogues with other territories and communities.

To inaugurate the two weeks of practices, we cooked and buried chochoyotes (corn dough “bellybuttons”), a gesture to root our practice in this new landscape. We also macerated artisanal mezcal with cherries and rhubarb, a special drink we prepared slowly for the final celebration. While cooking, we listened to the reading of La milpa es una ética by Vinik Juré Oses Sulvarán.

Tequio at Tiny Farms

Tiny Farms is an agroecological initiative that aims to inspire change through agroecology workshops and teaching intensive crops, following the concept of micro-agriculture. During our stay in Berlin, we visited their plot in Brandenburg where we carried out tequio, a labor exchange for fresh vegetables, while sharing experiences, work, and food, discussing seasonality, time, and collective work.

Collective Cooking with Satellit

Another exchange was the collective cooking in collaboration with the collective Satellit, who prepare community meals with neighbors and invited artists to address the challenges of climate change. With them, we made cajeta and Oaxacan kimchi with charales, while discussing the global shift of seasons, food politics, and the incorporation of culinary practices into the body.

De-shelling practices with foodculture days

With the foodculture days network, we de-shelled beans, peeled sunflower seeds, and prepared Sikil Pak, while reflecting on the technologies of sustenance and care.

Celebration of the pluriverse

In our final event, we celebrated the processes and connections made, presenting the activities and enjoying a big feast with the sprouted, fermented, and prepared foods over the two weeks.

The participation in Municipal Kitchens was a rewarding experience where, through collective moments of cooking and dialogue, we created a common territory guided by the cycles of the milpa, reimagining sustainable, community-based, and slow ways of inhabiting food in the city.

This project was made possible thanks to Municipal Kitchens and the Mobility Fund. Also, to the network of collaborators in Berlin, Foodculture days, and Margaux Schwab.

COLLABORATORS

Emilio Hernández Martínez 

Mariana Martínez Balvanera 

Elizabeth Guerrero Molina

Dea López 

Nicolás Amaro

Jesper Buursink 

Cherry Truluck