The Kitchen as Site for Radical Learning and Alternative Knowledge Production

This interactive presentation will share examples of two current research projects that explore the kitchen as both a site and methodological tool for research. We will discuss Sharing Foodways, our current design research project that involves prototyping tableware and producing a kit of parts to stage community kitchen gatherings; we will also introduce the Living Environmental Arts and Futures (LEAF) Kitchen & Lab, a new research space which, in name and in form, is intended to lend a critical eye to the framing of “lab”. Our work draws inspiration from domestic and community kitchens, related feminist and artistic interventions and other spaces where knowledge is created and shared in informal and matriarchal ways. With both examples, we will discuss the kitchen and its radical potential as a site for alternative ways of producing and sharing knowledge.