recipes as resistance (2025)
Northampton Contemporary
Artist Activation, Participatory Meal
Recipes as Resistance was presented at NN Contemporary Art (NNCA) as part of the Contemporary Visual Arts Network East Midlands Forum: Recalibrating Space: Artist-led Practice as Public Realm. The forum explored the role of artists as active agents in shaping the built environment and civic life, bringing together practitioners, commissioners, and communities to consider how artists make space physically, socially, and structurally.
The work was a participatory culinary artwork that transformed a shared meal into a site of remembering, storytelling, and place-making. It was not simply a catered lunch—it was spatial memory made edible. The kitchen was reimagined as a civic commons: a space where care, memory, and imagination converged, honouring ancestral knowledge passed through gestures, ingredients, and ritual.
The tablecloth beneath the meal became an evolving archive of memory, migration, care, and joy. Participants were invited to read, reflect, and contribute—writing, drawing, or leaving traces of their own stories—turning the meal into a collective act of storytelling and cultural preservation. Movement between courses encouraged engagement with different perspectives and histories, making the table both a relational and reflective landscape. The co-designed menu was provided by Ashley Samuels-Mackenzie (Coconut Paradise Cafe).
