The Kitchen Studio

The Kitchen Studio

Produced by: Ishwari Arambam, Mehreen Yousaf and Shruti Kondi.

Contributions by: Ashith Swaraj, Debankita Das, Hari Sanker P, Jahnvi Soni, Jemini Sara Nainan, Laiba Aslam, Nayantara Roy, Rane Rushikesh, Riya Kumar, Shikha Bafna, Siddhi Vartak, Swagatika Sarangi and Upasana Das.

Abhimanue Govindan, This is not my cup of tea, 2002, Watercolour and pen

The kitchen–often relegated to the farthest corner of the house is also a place for congregation–people cook, eat, meet and share oral histories here. This space witnesses innovation through scarcity, abundance, insecurity and joy...

TheKitchenStudioworkshop invited participants to look at the kitchen as a central point of departure–as a site and space that facilitates creativity, and to understand what informs the ways in which we operate in our kitchens.

What began as an inquiry by drawing parallels between the studio and kitchen, unearthed how layered our relationship with this space is.

The exercises generated dialogues and conversations around the kitchen as a laboratory, prison, and safe space. How do you occupy the kitchen? Does it leave you feeling burdened or liberated? The collaborative lines of inquiries that emerged out of this 10-day engagement fostered projects that prompted us to think about our shared culinary heritage, the physicality of the space, of discrimination and imagined alternatives.

“Where the immemorial and the instant meet, opening and distance appear. Through the opening: a door, crack of light. Behind the door, a kitchen...”

- Ouyang Jianghe, an excerpt from Mother, Kitchen

Kheer, Payasam, Payesh

By Laiba Aslam, Jemini Sara Nainan, Debankita Das

Being from three different parts of the subcontinent, separated by lines and borders but not by spirits; this is an attempt to feel closer to each other through the shared cuisine of South Asia. Being in each other’s kitchen virtually, and cooking together as an act of love.

Despite being developed and invented in the same region, these recipes from the subcontinent have metamorphosed through cultural, geographical and religious differences. This project is inspired by the shared geographical memory that emerged through our individual stories from Lahore, Kerala and West Bengal and their respective cuisines.

Through this exchange of recipes, we concluded that the differentiating factor was the type of rice used. With the difference in climatic conditions in the three regions, there is a huge difference in agricultural

Image Courtesy: Laiba Aslam, Debankita Das, Jemini Sara Nainan

practices leading to adaptation of whatever form of rice is readily available in the region. The accessibility of ingredients in a particular region determines what form the rice pudding takes.

The authenticity of a recipe is subjective to every region and further to every household. Whether we call it kheer, payasam or payesh, it remains a quintessential dessert in the subcontinent that transcends cultures and cuisines with its rich, creamy, silk-like texture.

Find out more about the project here: https://exploringunion.editorx.io/merging-cultures

Kheer

By Laiba’s Nano

Ingredients:

Milk-2.5kgs

Rice -65 grams

Sugar - According to taste

Elaichi (cardamom) -4-5

Almonds -1/3 cup (To be added in kheer and for garnish)

Pistachios -2 tbsp (for garnish)

Silver foil - For garnish

Payasam

By Jemini’s Mama

Ingredients:

Matta Rice (brown in color) or Brown Rice -250 gm

Milk -500 ml

Jaggery -200 gm

Water-4 glasses

Cardamom -4

Jeera -1tsp

Ghee -2tbsp

Dried Ginger Powder -½ tsp

Cashew Nuts (Optional) -100 gm

Raisins (Optional) -100 gm

Small coconut chunks-100 gm

Payesh

By Debankita’s Amma

Ingredients

Full-fat milk-1 litre ( fat is equal to creaminess)

Gobindobhog rice ‘new’ -50g

Nolen Gur -150 g (date palm jaggery)

Salt -¼ tsp

Cashew -20g

Raisins (soaked and drained) -10g

Ghee -10g

Root to Shoot

By Nayantara Roy, Ashith Swaraj

Our ancestors collaborated with nature to meet their food needs in unexpectedly creative ways. They relied on seasonal ingredients for their diets. When the produce was in plenty, they sought to find ways in which they could preserve these foods so that they could be enjoyed later.

There was an emphasis on the seasonality of ingredients in their meals, and, preservation methods such as fermentation and drying. Nose-totail or root-to-shoot cooking was employed, where not even a single part of the ingredient was wasted. The kitchen space strived to be as zero waste as possible.

Bottle-Gourd

Peel Fry

Bottle gourd peels

Mustard oil -15g

Dried red chilli -1

Bay leaf -1

Nigella seeds -¼ tsp

Grated coconut -6g

Green chilli -1

Turmeric powder -¼ tsp

Salt -3g

Sugar -6g

Coriander leaves (optional)

Born out of hardship, this recipe makes use of the nutritious peel of the bottle gourd.

Chop the gourd peels evenly into matchsticks.

Place them in a saucepan, cover with water and steam for 5 minutes with the lid on, just enough to parboil the peels. Strain and set aside.

In a kadhai, heat some mustard oil. Temper it with red chilli, bay leaf, and nigella seeds.

Then add the parboiled peels and fry on medium heat. Add the grated coconut and slit green chilli.

Season with salt and turmeric. Stir, cover and cook for 6 minutes or so.

Sprinkle sugar towards the end. Coriander leaves can be added at this stage. Serve hot with rice.

Ngarinkha Kanghou, Illustration by Nayantara Roy

Grey Areas

Often a place where one engages in the act of dwelling, kitchens allow for unfettered conversation and thought to take form.

Pregnant pauses give birth to dreams and unravel desires that never came to be.

An Inquiry into the Invisible

By Riya Kumar, Jahnvi Soni

What are the facets of the kitchen that engender disgust?

The kitchen often associated with care and nourishment–can concomitantly function as a site of constant discrimination. We looked at the role played by the physicality of various objects in this. However materialistic, oftentimes these discriminations are hidden and rarely come to the surface. Here in this project, we bring forth two different approaches and interpretations of discrimination. One looks at decay and preservation as an intervention into the physicality of food and the other looks at the social implications of discrimination based on material value.

Decay, Death, Discovery

In an exploration of the undertones of the materiality of objects in the kitchen, I look at the ageing of organic objects. What can objects in decay and the treatment of organic waste tell us about our food practices? Do they facilitate learning and innovation? My mother focuses on the odour of various fruits, vegetables and experiments with them. For example, she uses fried orange peels, dried shells of lemons as a preservative for her rice and lentils. She drops them in lentil containers and has witnessed that the aromatic properties of such elements work as a fine preservative.

Thus, the kitchen for me is an experimental laboratory where we accept and exercise accidental learning. Here, I have focused on the form of these shells to emphasize on their usefulness despite their wasteful look.

- Jahnvi

Video Courtesy: Jahnvi Soni

Who gets to dream?

I was a little nervous as I set out on this conversation with Mukesh–he has cooked and lived with my family for more than 25 years, yet I have never heard him string more than two sentences together. As we sat in the kitchen on two chowkis, the washing machine humming in the pantry, I listened as he recounted memories of his childhood, dreams that didn’t materialise and employers who inflicted psychological and physical abuse. I stopped recording after we hit the 40-minute mark. As our conversation unfurled, I found that we had drifted from what I had chartered as my central focus, far beyond the four walls of my kitchen.

I do not know much about Mukesh.

We have inhabited the same space for the last twenty four years. He has cooked meals for a family of eight, spread across three generations, catering to difficult palettes. He has swatted bees from my bedroom, removed lizards from high ceilings, changed light bulbs in my bathrooms. He’s witnessed the cyclical nature of entrepreneurial businesses; he’s watched us downsize. He makes atta ka halwa every year for my birthday. He has kept quiet when I’ve brought people home after hours.

My aunt, my mother’s older sister, Malini, was revered by most family members. For Mukesh, she represented opportunity and the promise of working in a country where one would have to take a flight–something that still fascinates him. I learnt that working in my familial home in Chennai, in unfamiliar terrain, held him back from where he wanted to be. It made me think about how our ability to dream can be contingent on a person, how that can be taken away if they cease to exist, how some of us do not have the privilege to dream.

Snippet from Riya’s conversation with Mukesh - Riya

Abhimanue Govindan, Untitled, 2002, Watercolour on paper

Missing Ingredient: Solitude

By Swagatika Sarangi, Hari Sanker P

How does the kitchen as a site of discrimination stifle its occupants’ dreams? How does design and materiality factor into making it a prison, a playground, a laboratory?

Historically, kitchens have been occupied by women–our stories of enjoying family recipes, elaborate meals, all shouldered by their unsung labour, romanticised so as to erase the sweat, toil and time that is spent.

When it rains women of the house sprint to save the precious, carry a mountain of almost drenched clothes to spread under the fan in a small dingy room

women at leisure, a rare sight in households & places brimming with men

history says the first known author was a woman yet, our bookshelves don’t nest their names

did women cease to exist in their space?

where they shed the tag of someone’s someone and revel in their self

what if, when it rains, women of the house wander in their wonder sit by the window in a space of their own slice buttery words saute crunchy characters

- Swagatika

Who are our mothers?

As kids, we grew up seeing our mothers and aunts spend most of their time in the kitchen. It was an unspoken rule, passed down in time, that the kitchen was where you could find the women of the house.

If we say the word “mother” and ask you to give us 5 words, don’t you think kitchen or food would probably make it on to the list?

We want to know who our mothers are. Who are they without the tag of a wife, mother, sister-in-law or daughter? What are their favourite places to travel to?

How would they spend their time alone?

To explore what lies beyond the kitchen space, we present a story of their dreamscapes

Dreamscapes, Illustration by Hari Sanker P and Swagatika Sarangi

Dreamscapes, Illustration by Hari Sanker P and Swagatika Sarangi

Sugandhi

Dance lover. Solitude seeker.

Clad in her mother’s saree, Sugandhi would imagine being a teacher in a classroom with her students. A lover of artistic expression, she spent her childhood singing, writing, drawing, dancing, and watching people dance. Now, as a clerk, Sugandhi enjoys her lunch break with her colleagues. She calls it the main entertainment of the day. When asked about her relationship with solitude, Sugandhi told us her mind feels the most at peace when she’s indulging in her me time

A solitude seeker. She goes down memory lane, dips her hands into some of her hobbies, or scrolls through YouTube in search of that song her mother used to sing to her. The movie Shankarabharanam left a lingering impact on Sugandhi’s mind. The long hallways lined with pillars, palaces and dancers swaying around. She says the movie sparked her interest in the architecture of temples and that’s why Thanjavur has been on her bucket list to travel. Her idea of a dream space is a white-washed house. Luxury is not a necessity, but efficiency is. She wants her dream space to be spacious, free, minimalist. A room of her own where she could read, listen to music, have indoor plants, and a window that opens up to the warmth of sunlight and the dreamyness of the moonlight. A space that encourages a clutter-free mind. This is Sugandhi’s space of her own.

Where Have the Queers Eaten?

by Upasana Das

How do we make the kitchen a space that does not alienate, but embrace? What can alternative imaginations of the kitchen teach us about the ways in which design, architecture and attitudes, imprison or alienate certain sects of society?

Through Where Have the Queers Eaten?, I spoke to people from the queer community to understand how they operate in the kitchen, how the space facilitates queer expression and how they spatially imagine a queer kitchen…

“Food carries intergenerational and personal histories. Over the years, I have learned recipes that my trans elders have been cooking in secret for years. My kitchen is an extremely queer space by virtue of those who use it. For most queer folks, our chosen families take precedence over blood families. Who do we then pass on our secret recipes to? I have been passed on secret recipes by my trans elders and intend to do the same someday when I am older.”

- Nandini

“By cooking as a performance or food as a work of art, I mean the culinary art of fine dining. It’s the idea of food beyond being a necessity. Cooking has been aestheticised as something one can do for themselves, as a self-pleasure. Not just the end product that is eaten but the process itself is accentuated as a way of self-expression and healing. In that it is queer, I believe, just as the closet allows people to be who they are and pleasure themselves as they want...

Making something as mundane as home-cooked food, tacky with the use of absurd ingredients that usually don’t go with each other but somehow do is a way of parodying the mainstream too. That is the queer aspect of my cooking. Welcoming and sharing that food with people who are queers, on a table that doesn’t enforce the etiquettes of dinner at your father’s boss’ house is queer too.”

- Pradipta

“Everyone will be required to sit down together. Nobody discusses office work and business at the table. Everyone checks in with each other. it will also serve as a family for anyone who doesn’t have one! Almost like a drag/chosen family? Everyone is welcome at the table and on some nights, the table will be a floor with pillows littered everywhere.”

- Raj

Raj’s real kitchen. Imaginary Raj in the kitchen, Image and Illustration by Raj

Raj’s imaginary kitchen, Illustration by Raj

The Back Stage

As people flock together to celebrate, rejoice, mourn, commiserate, the kitchen becomes the backstage for preparation, collaboration and creative exchange. Most of what is executed on the fore-end is planned, revised and anchored here.

The Kitchen Table

By Shikha Bafna

This is a love story.

Author Adam Gopnik was inspired to call his book The Table Comes

First after his interaction with the British chef Fergus Henderson, who said, “I don’t understand how a young couple can begin life by buying a sofa or a television...Don’t they know the table comes first?”

I keep going back to this.

For me, the kitchen is a workspace. In the most literal sense, I like to think of it as my study/work area. When the pandemic began, I moved in with my grandparents. My grandmother spent a lot of time in the kitchen because she loved the light there, and to cook. My grandfather spent a lot of time in the kitchen because he loved my grandmother. As work and my classes shifted online, I spent a lot of time hovering in front of my laptop writing articles, making graphics, attending seminars and carrying out many such tasks.

The kitchen table became the perfect study desk. It was big enough for me to pile my stuff and yet small enough that it only occupied a tiny corner in the kitchen. The kitchen table was also where my grandmother cut vegetables, sorted grains, and read her books. My grandfather was an accomplice to her every activity. All of us spent our time around that kitchen table, repurposing it in different ways. We were coworkers. This was coworking in its demo version. Sharing a space brought us closer in ways I did not anticipate.

Love does not always have a Bollywood soundtrack. Sometimes it just has a refrigerator humming in the background.

While today my grandmother is no longer with us, what remains is a kitchen full of memories and a space that brought us closer.

The table is important. Not because of what’s on it or the ways you can use it but because of who surrounds it.

Sound Story

By Siddhi Vartak, Rane Rushikesh

Through this project, we wanted to revisit memories and archive sound-memories of people coming together in the kitchen–allowing the space to expand experientially by letting in a bit of the outside. Bells heard from the pav wala as he makes his routine pit stops, trains that pass through the adjacent railway track, neighbours who come in to offer help, sounds seeping in from the drawing room–these passively contribute to the ambience of the kitchen and the preparation of every meal.

The Kitchen as a Musical Instrument

To trigger some interesting hide-and-reveal elements in the visuals, we looked at the kitchen as a musical instrument or music-making machine.

Through this, we attempted to merge the intangible with the tangible. However, the question remained: What informs the form of the instrument or machine? We did not want it to have a super-realistic form directly picked from a kitchen; and if so, whose kitchen would we pick from? How would the ideas be merged? How would we create an experience that belonged to, or was inspired by both of our experiences?

Stains, Illustration by Siddhi Varthak

Stains

Very similar to how a stage looks after a theatrical performance–with the lighting from the last scene falling on props yet to be removed, remnants of dry ice still floating in the air, markings on the floor, and the seats still dented from hosting an audience–the kitchen too leaves behind residues from meals cooked, with an entirely new set of stains created after every performance.

This element from the kitchen is a guide for forms that we would like to have in our instrument or music machine. Rather, these stains (collected from familiar kitchens) are composed very similarly to the sound story and directs the narrative we intend to create.

Stains, Illustration by Siddhi Varthak

Instrument Beat by Siddhi Vartak and Rushikesh Rane

We are immensely grateful to our facilitator Ishita Shah for guiding us through the making and helping us put together a virtual workshop. Thank you for your patience and generosity through all the back-and-forth, and sharing your expertise across many email exchanges, chats and discussions online.

Thank you to our participants–Ashith Swaraj, Debankita Das, Hari Sanker P, Jahnvi Soni, Jemini Sara Nainan, Laiba Aslam, Nayantara Roy, Rane Rushikesh, Riya Kumar, Shikha Bafna, Siddhi Vartak, Swagatika Sarangi, and Upasana Das for participating in The Kitchen Studio workshop and contributing to this project. This publication is only possible because of your time, energy, and sustained shared efforts.

Thanks to our guest speakers at the workshop, Afrah Shafiq, Krish Ashok and Soumya Bhave.

This project was supported by OSCH. Our Shared Cultural Heritage (OSCH) is a youth-led programme that explores the shared cultures and histories of the UK and South Asia. OSCH is organised in partnership with the British Council.

Thanks to our designers Abraham John and Mahesh for your help in designing the publication.

Thanks to our mentor, Shilpa Vijayakrishnan, for your invaluable feedback and timely inputs.

Many thanks to Shruti Rao for helping us conceptualise the project. It was the story of a family ritual of eating a jackfruit in a Kannadiga home that sparked The Kitchen Studio.

© 2022 Museum of Art & Photography (MAP), Bengaluru, a division of the Art & Photography Foundation (APF).