Cooking Catastrophes (2011)
a performance where you can taste the end of the world
by Hanna Sybille Müller and Eva Meyer-Keller
Cooking Catastrophes is a performance, a cooking show and a reflection on our future. Top chefs serve edible scenes, which depict natural and environmental disasters, wars and serious accidents. Forest fires, over flooded rivers, avalanches, earthquakes, meteorite falls, exploding oilrigs and crashing jumbo jet -planes, all and more in front of an audience. It smells and stinks, the pleasant yet uncomfortable catastrophes are often overwhelmingly incomprehensible and difficult to digest, but still the spectators are invited for a tasting. Cooking Catastrophes brings out and plays with the tension between pleasure and fear.
The performance features some of the country’s best chefs, who have devised the evening’s menu together with the artists. As the performance is being served, the camera work by Marika Heidebäck appeals to our well-trimmed media sensitivity. The recited texts are based on interviews with various experts on the science of climate and global change, cooking and food production.
Eva Meyer-Keller and Sybille Müller have previously created Building After Catastrophes, a workshop with children, which culminated in illustrations of disasters through food. Cooking Catastrophes was produced by the artists and commissioned by Mossutställningar to create a new work for the series called “Konstrestauranger”. This is the second edition, preceded by The Dinner Club, by Poste Restante.
Cooking Catastrophes is a performance, a cooking show and a reflection on our future. Top chefs serve edible scenes, which depict natural and environmental disasters, wars and serious accidents. Forest fires, over flooded rivers, avalanches, earthquakes, meteorite falls, exploding oilrigs and crashing jumbo jet -planes, all and more in front of an audience. It smells and stinks, the pleasant yet uncomfortable catastrophes are often overwhelmingly incomprehensible and difficult to digest, but still the spectators are invited for a tasting. Cooking Catastrophes brings out and plays with the tension between pleasure and fear.
The performance features some of the country’s best chefs, who have devised the evening’s menu together with the artists. As the performance is being served, the camera work by Marika Heidebäck appeals to our well-trimmed media sensitivity. The recited texts are based on interviews with various experts on the science of climate and global change, cooking and food production.
Eva Meyer-Keller and Sybille Müller have previously created Building After Catastrophes, a workshop with children, which culminated in illustrations of disasters through food. Cooking Catastrophes was produced by the artists and commissioned by Mossutställningar to create a new work for the series called “Konstrestauranger”. This is the second edition, preceded by The Dinner Club, by Poste Restante.
Concept & Performance: Eva Meyer-Keller and Hanna Sybille Müller
Chefs: Thomas C. Bräuhäuser, Kane Do, Astrid Sophie Fleisch, Jim Löfdahl, Andreas Lindberg, Regina Rager, Mariana Silva Varela, Peter Whaley, Filip Zubaczek
Camera: Marika Heidebäck
Design: Byggstudio
Dramaturgical Advisor: Cecilie Ullerup Schmidt
Production: Susanne Beyer, Alexandra Wellensiek
Chefs: Thomas C. Bräuhäuser, Kane Do, Astrid Sophie Fleisch, Jim Löfdahl, Andreas Lindberg, Regina Rager, Mariana Silva Varela, Peter Whaley, Filip Zubaczek
Camera: Marika Heidebäck
Design: Byggstudio
Dramaturgical Advisor: Cecilie Ullerup Schmidt
Production: Susanne Beyer, Alexandra Wellensiek
Produced by Mossutställningar
Co-produced by PACT Zollverein and Goethe-Institute Schweden
With support from Fonden Innovativ Kultur, Kulturrådet, Stiftelsen framtidens kultur
Sponsors: Nybohovs festlokal, Werners Gourmet service
Co-produced by PACT Zollverein and Goethe-Institute Schweden
With support from Fonden Innovativ Kultur, Kulturrådet, Stiftelsen framtidens kultur
Sponsors: Nybohovs festlokal, Werners Gourmet service
Venues
Mossutställningar, Stockholm (SWE), Indisciplinarte, Terni (IT), Pact Zollverein, Essen (DE), Kaaitheater, Brüssel (BE), Regionale 12, Steiermark (AUS), Odyssee:Klima, Bremerhaven (DE), Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin (DE) und Figurentheaterfestival Erlangen (DE).
Mossutställningar, Stockholm (SWE), Indisciplinarte, Terni (IT), Pact Zollverein, Essen (DE), Kaaitheater, Brüssel (BE), Regionale 12, Steiermark (AUS), Odyssee:Klima, Bremerhaven (DE), Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin (DE) und Figurentheaterfestival Erlangen (DE).