Poetics of the Kitchen

We take the seed as our departure point: not merely as biological matter, but as a time machine and transnational archive carrying histories and the possibility of continuity across ruptured time and displaced geographies. The kitchen becomes an extension of the seed, a space where its latent potential is realized, shared, and re-membered. 
 

Thinking through Zaatar as a form of knowledge rooted in a particular relationship to land allows us to grasp the complexities of the region: the interspecies alliances between people, plants, soil, and landscape that occupation and ecocide seek to sever. 

Memories are not fixed archives, but continuous conversations that grow and are carried across generations. How can ancestral technologies of cooking, gathering, and storytelling intersect with new and emerging technologies of memory-making? 
 

In this kitchen workshop, we will explore the issue of ecocide induced by war and occupation in southern Lebanon, examining how relationships are dismembered and how they prevail despite these circumstances. Participants will prepare a Zaatar Salad together, accompanied by spoken contributions and shared conversations. Kitchens connect individuals and communities, sensual experiences and social practices, and local environments and histories of taste. They are places where we can both remember the past and reimagine the present.

If you'd like to attend this workshop, please fill out this form: Poetics of the Kitchen - Registration Form

This workshop is facilitated by Epona Hamdan and Lachlan Summers.