A Project by Paula Erstmann

Community Food Lab

Paula Erstmann is a nominee in the category Cooking for Change, mentored by award-winning chef Manu Buffara. She is part of the sociocultural initiative ZusammenKüche at Dragonerareal, Berlin, a yet undeveloped site for 500 social housing units. There, she proposes to establish a community kitchen that explores the needs of future tenants and neighbors and encourage them to think of food as an aesthetic means of communication and exchange.

The kitchen will be a place to invent new scenarios for food and to rethink its possibilities at the intersection of everyday life and art. Erstmann describes herself as a food poet, recipe liberator, and amuse-gueule avant-gardist. Her performances, menus, and culinary installations explore the social context of the dishes on display and their characteristic qualities; they also carve sensual as well as social spaces. Above all, they encourage us to perceive food—and its presentation—as an aesthetic and resonant medium of communication, and to rethink its possibilities.

At the Forecast Forum, Erstmann will present How to Feed a Hungry Crowd, a cooking show-style work that showcases her artistic approach, and how she managed to implement it into the community food lab.

In the video below, Paula Erstmann explains her work and its connection to the location at Dragonerareal in the heart of Berlin:

Paula Erstmann. Video profile by Moois