TASTING THE INTANGIBLE: food traditions & rituals

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WeAre#EuropeForCulture

In Amsterdam, de thuisbasis van technische partner Noterik, zetten we een reeks experimentele evenementen op, met het oog op fijntuning – in de loop van het project – van de innovatieve workshopmethodologie en de gebruikte technologie. Daartoe werden een aantal voorbereidende workshops gehouden in de gebouwen van Noterik en in Baking Lab Amsterdam: een bakkerij-annex-werkplaats en laboratorium voor voedselexperimenten, met aandacht voor duurzaamheid, strategieën tegen afval en milieukwesties. Baking Lab is gelegen aan de Linnaeusstraat, in Amsterdam-Oost, en is een ideale partner voor WeAre#EuropeForCulture om gemeenschappen te bereiken buiten de traditionele museale context.

Ter voorbereiding van het evenement, als een MuPop-demo maar ook als een nieuwe digitale functie in de gebouwen van Baking Lab, werd een tentoonstelling gemaakt waarin het thema van de workshop werd gecombineerd met cultureel erfgoed dat was geselecteerd uit Europeana. Deze tentoonstelling, getiteld “Life, Encrusted: Bread and Rituals”, vertelt het verhaal van brood maken, eten en delen, met aandacht voor zowel biologische dimensies als culturele betekenis, historische aspecten en actuele trends. Een tweede tentoonstelling, ook te zien in Baking Lab, zal materiaal uit een interviewgesprek mengen met het team van Baking Lab, met inhoud die is gemaakt samen met de studenten. De centrale metafoor is dit keer het groeiproces van een spruit, die zowel de biochemische processen weerspiegelt die spelen bij het maken / bakken van brood als het potentieel van een anti-afval, op duurzaamheid gerichte benadering van voedsel.

Tijdens het Buurtsalon in het Tropenmuseum maakten we de cirkel rond en legden we een nieuwe collectie aan van heel persoonlijke tradities die gulle museumbezoekers met ons deelden.

De interactieve expo’s gecreëerd in en met Baking Lab zijn te zien in Linnaeusstraat 99, Amsterdam.

De pop-up in samenwerking met het Tropenmuseum wordt verwacht begin 2020.

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In Amsterdam, the city of technical partner Noterik, we deploy a series of experimental events aimed at finetuning – in the course of the WeAre#EuropeForCulture project – the innovative workshop methodology as well as the technology used. To this end, a number of preparatory workshops have been held at the Noterik premises as well as in Baking Lab Amsterdam, a bakery-annex-workshop venue and food experimentation lab, focusing on sustainability, anti-waste-strategies and environmental issues. Located at the Linnaeusstraat, in Amsterdam East, Baking Lab is an ideal partner for WeAre#EuropeForCulture to reach out to communities outside of traditional museum contexts.

In preparation of the events, an exhibition was created with the innovative MuPoP exhibition tool, pairing the workshop theme to cultural heritage content selected from Europeana. Entitled “Life, Encrusted: Bread and Rituals”, this exhibition tells the story of bread making, eating and sharing, focusing on both biological dimensions as well as cultural meaning, historical aspects as well as current trends. A second exhibition, also to be displayed at Baking Lab, will mix material sourced during an interview session with Baking Lab’s team with content co-created with the students. At the center, this time, will be the metaphor of the growing process of a sprout, reflecting both the biochemical processes at play in making/baking bread and the potential of an anti-waste, sustainability-focused approach to food.

A second collaboration in Amsterdam was established with the Tropenmuseum – one of the city’s largest museums. Inspired by the story of Baking Lab’s rituals, as photographed by the museum for an earlier, physical pop up exhibition in the Amsterdam Oost neighborhood (‘My Ritual’, summer 2019), a follow-up exhibition using the MuPop format was devised. Taking the theme of ‘My Ritual’ beyond culinary traditions this time, the project team was given a stand at a community event on museum premises, allowing for visitors to be interviewed about their personal traditions, and to be portrayed by a professional photographer. With the images and sound recordings gathered, an interactive display will be produced that is to become part of a mobile exhibition unit, designed by Tropenmuseum and destined to ‘pop up’ at several locations across the Amsterdam Oost district in early 2020.

With this full-circle narrative, the Amsterdam installment of WeAre#EuropeForCulture reached above and beyond expectations, having provided ample opportunity to test and finetune technical developments and user engagement formats, as well as resulting in no less than 3 interactive, co-created exhibitions. In turn, WeAre#EuropeForCulture has contributed to the long-term joint trajectory of a major heritage institution (Tropenmuseum), the local community in which it’s embedded (Amsterdam Oost) and a staple of that community (Baking Lab).

WORKSHOPS

11 April 2019: Co-creation day with Baking Lab
A very special place where baking is a preset for connecting people and exploring cultural and societal topics. We spent the afternoon conducting interviews with employees, collecting images and video material.

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12 April 2019: Workshop at Noterik
Meeting to finetune exhibition formats; afternoon session with the participation of Adrian Murphy, collections manager at Europeana, who provided feedback on the first batch of crowdsourced material and the exhibition storylines.

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17 May 2019: Anti-waste baking, food rituals and the circle of life
30 master students of the Pollenzo Foodlab at the Italian University of Gastronomic Sciences (UNISG) participated in a co-creative workshop and learned about preparing bread and its fundamental meaning for human life and culture. It was a totally new engagement format, in which students could study and try out artisanal practices while learning to develop storytelling techniques using QANDR and MuPOP tools.
READ HERE A PRESS RELEASE BY Baking Lab Amsterdam.

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16 November 2019: crowdsourcing activity at Tropenmuseum Amsterdam
In the framework of ‘Buurtsalon’, an all-day event organized by the Tropenmuseum for the local community of Amsterdam Oost, WeAre#EuropeForCulture manned a booth in the museum’s impressive exhibition hall, where material was crowdsourced for an interactive exhibition on the theme of ‘My Ritual’.

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