Have you ever enjoyed a meal together with friends and strangers alike?
Can you imagine a square hosting a big table that neighbours share for dinner in summer nights?
Is it possible to raise awareness and fight food waste by launching a public banquet prepared out of leftovers?
In recent years numerous initiatives worldwide have arisen using food to challenge the way people engage in urban public spaces. Combining various backgrounds such as art, architecture, activism or anthropology, this interventions have been put into practice without any commercial purpose but holding multiple intentions that range from enjoyment and celebration to education or political protest.
City Cook Book is a collection of initiatives enhancing public spaces by bringing people together through food culture. It aims to explore how food can be an effective tool to both transform our common spaces into sites for encounter and social interaction, as well as to engage with larger issues that shape our everyday urban life. Through its digital platform and its print-it-yourself publication, City Cook Book intents to visualize this phenomena, reflect upon it and inspire other initiatives.
contact[at]citycookbook.org
City Cook Book is a non-profit initiative developed by Claudia Sánchez and Íñigo Cornago.
This web and publication has been designed by ereslomastumas and programmed by Andrés Sedano.
Proyecto financiado por Ayudas Creación Injuve
Project funded by Ayudas Creación Injuve
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I awoke at 6 a.m. to the smell of freshly baked bread — but my mother’s bread was nowhere to be seen.
Certain scents have the power to transport me across thousands of miles and all the years I have lived. When I smell a new scent, I immediately link it to a person, an event, a thing or even a moment. The aroma of bread takes my mind instantly to my mother’s kitchen. My Mom has always loved baking bread. I remember helping her knead the dough in a circle shape with honey and thyme topping, which would arrive golden brown from the oven and into the open, eager hands of her sixteen children and our family’s guests.
The scent of bread demonstrates my belief that the sense of smell is most closely associated with memory. In this performance, I made my mother’s bread on a Blackstone as a social practice, inviting the audience to experience the sights, sounds, and aromas of this special ritual.
Fatimah Alyami is a recent graduate with a Masters degree in Art Edcation from the University of Cincinnati, Ohio. Born in Saudi Arabia and raised in a huge family.
Fatimah’s early interests in serenity and simplicity have developed into socially engaged artistic inquiries that integrate feminist theories, art historical knowledge, and fine arts practices. In addition to the live-performance methods used in the bread-baking event, she works in a variety of media, including photography, sculpture, and video.