sofía olascoaga

Cooking to Learn approaches the essence of eating together, not only from the perspective of the practice of gathering, but also centers on the collective process of the preparation of food. As a political positioning, cooking together becomes an invitation to reflect further: how may we self-organize and sustain –always in intricate relationship with collectivities woven at different speeds and distances– our own conditions and resources to, on one hand, generate and cultivate encounters on a sustained rhythm – and not only as extraordinary events; and, on the other hand, to do it in such a way that bodies, times and basic needs of all and many, are at the center?

Chapter 1: Conversation between Bas Magnée and Sofía Olascoaga ——–In their wide-ranging dialogue, Bas and Sofía shared personal life experiences related to cooking, cooperative work and cooperative living – starting with the role of the Cantina in the life of Rijks’ ecosystem – and then quickly moving on to the squatting movement in the Netherlands, experimental art centers in Mexico City and community-run fire brigades in the mountains of Tepoztlán. Many common threads surfaced central to both of their personal trajectories, cooking to learn, cooking and beyond ———- (click here to read)

Chapter 2: Cooking as rehearsal: meeting again ————– In March 2022 Sofía Olascoaga deployed the Amsterdam chapter of her Cooking to Learn series, which have also been part of the Bienal of Sao Paulo (which she curated), amongst others —————- (click here to read)

Cooking to Learn, conceives the kitchen and the act of cooking as an investigative site for individual and shared learning. The kitchen is imagined as ground for the exploration and transmission of embodied and inherited forms of knowledge; the recognition of intuitive tools for self organization; the cultivation of a daily practice that interweaves territories, productive communities and social agents. The kitchen is a space to explore the possibilities of the act of cooking at the epicenter of the sustenance and maintenance of life.

Nourishing, as well as feeding, function in both metaphorical and practical terms as sustaining elements of individual and collective life. Hence, we aim to share a deeper understanding of the daily practice of cooking as research: self-sustainability on an individual dimension, and also as a possibility to rehearse models for collective exchange. 

Cooking to Learn is also a practice of close interrelation to the specificity of the context and its surroundings: territorial –  in terms of the sites in which produce and resources are cultivated –  and social, in respect to the diverse communities, groups and people who intervene in the sole act of cooking – through their production, distribution and consumption. Cooking spaces and kitchens are, thus, spaces from which a situated research can activate an ongoing mapping practice. 

The Kitchen and The School

Cooking to Learn performs practices inspired by temporary labs and encounters, articulated by cooking as site and as craft, interrogating practical and poetic explorations such as: 

• The relationship between kitchen and school, where both are understood as spaces of learning and life sustenance. 
• The opposite to school is possible. 
• An organic space for encounter with the inherent collective nature of shared labour (whether implicit or explicit). 
• A space of practice in which diverse knowledges for livelihood and sustainability are rehearsed.
• A practice with proper formal conditions: rhythm, body, temporality.
• A cultural practice of profound and embodied genealogies.
• A practice where learning occurs by transmission, or contagion.
• Different from simply gathering for a meal, beginning by cooking collectively allows for the possibility of a conscious self-construction of the very conditions that make an encounter posible.
• As a space for an encounter, cooking together allows to  reconfigure the inertia of the service/client coded dynamics, which are frequently reproduced in institutions, public and educational programs, and in orchestrated encounters within the cultural field. 
• To reclaim and grant a return of agency and responsibility to build (ourselves) the proper conditions for encounters to happen.