Kitchen139 - Ten-day Communal Kitchen Experiment

Kitchen139 – Ten-day Communal Kitchen Experiment

6–17 December 2011 / Amsterdam
A cooperation between W139 and Casco, in the context of The Grand Domestic Revolution – User’s Manual
Location: W139, Warmoesstraat 139, Amsterdam

OPENING PROGRAMME

The ten-day communal kitchen experiment Kitchen139 opens on Sat 3 December 2011 with an extensive evening program from 21:00 on.

X Screening of the 2nd episode “The Cost of Living” of the cooperative sitcom Our Autonomous Life? part of GDR, ca. 15 min.
X Introduction to Plutopia – Policies for Globally Sustainable Common Wealth by Claus Peter Pfeffer.
X Cees van der Laarse Jr. sings Frank Sinatra.
X Cooking to the bone, Sjim Hendrix’ Poor Men’s Kitchen.

“…housekeeping and all matters pertaining formerly to the private sphere of the family have become a ‘collective’ concern.”

–Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (1958)

INTRODUCTION

More than half a century ago, Hannah Arendt stated that in the modern world two spheres of life – the private and the public – are not separated any longer and the economy is very much about how to keep a household and vice versa. However, how much do we know about our economy? More than a century ago, American feminists started building communal kitchens in order to socialise their isolated work as well as to save time for other activities such as the suffrage movement. What would we gain from such a communal kitchen today? And who is this “we?”

Kitchen139 transforms W139 into a ten-day open kitchen and invites all of those occupied with multiple deadlines and appointments towards the end of year, to join a collective house management where cooking, eating, talking, thinking, cleaning are all coming together. Inspiring or even more fatiguing, or possibly both?

Each dinner is prepared by a diversity of social and cultural initiatives, including Artists in Occupy Amsterdam, Amsterdam Dinner Movement and The Living Room(s), that express their current works through the hospitality of cooking and serving. Each cooking process is moderated by a host and broadcasted daily from 19:00-20:30 on Red Light Radio for which listeners can not only learn of the original recipes but also the materials of thoughts behind them. Parallel to the cooking sessions is a series of daily lectures by Amsterdam based economist Claus Peter Pfeffer on his alternative economic theory Plutopia – Policies for Globally Sustainable Common Wealth, aka Pfeifferism.

Kitchen139 has been co-developed by W139 and Casco in the context of the current project exhibition at Casco The Grand Domestic Revolution – User’s Manual (GDR). In the GDR exhibition, on view through 26 February 2012, the private status of domestic space is questioned and new forms of life in common are searched for. Kitchen139 is conceived out of an observation of what one may call a resurgence of interest in domesticity and social change embodied by movements such as Occupy Amsterdam, who are making common domestic matters public on the Beursplein. Only 200 meters away, Kitchen139 could be considered as a differentiated, extended tent of Occupy Amsterdam and a voice in the continuous call for a grand domestic revolution today. Next to our evening program, the space is open for daily public use.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

The restaurant is open at 19.00 from Tuesday 6–Sunday 11 December and from Wednesday 14–Saturday 17 December.
The schedule to see who is cooking when is published on the website.

Reservations for the evenings are required and can be made via emailkitchen@w139.nl (please mention your name, email address, phone number and date of the evening)

On the day itself via telephone: 020 6229434 (max. 20 reservations per night)

The menu and the costs for each dinner are defined by the groups that are cooking.