Communalising kitchens as public luxury: infrastructure design in post-work futures.

Join the Urban Futures Studio on December 3rd for an engaging Friends of the Future seminar with Kevin Lai. Kevin is a design researcher based in the Netherlands. His research interests lie at the intersection of urban political ecology and infrastructural studies, focusing on the metabolism of food matter in Dutch cities. In this interactive seminar Lai invites us on his journey into the foodscape of Rotterdam. He volunteers in collective kitchens and engages in conversations with various food agents. In the first part of this workshop, he will introduce the ongoing Horizon Europe project, Open Kitchen, in collaboration with the Nieuwe Instituut. The second part of the workshop will be a collective mapping exercise involving participants in reconfiguring Rotterdam as a food-enabling city. This workshop intends to make space for lively imaginations exploring the approach and form of infrastructuring public kitchens in post-work futures.

Collective kitchens in contemporary cities are key to the just transition from the current food-disabling neoliberal urbanism to a food-enabling one. The thesis is that the current food crisis is a crisis of social reproduction. At the same time, a just transition necessitates a complete reorganisation of social relations, such as remunerating meaningful reproductive work and reconstituting food provision as public luxury. Community initiatives such as collective kitchens are one of the key actions in this reorientation, a form of prefigurative politics that enacts a future-to-come.

About Kevin Lai

Kevin Lai is a design researcher based in the Netherlands. His research interests lie at the intersection of urban political ecology and infrastructural studies, focusing on the metabolism of food matter in Dutch cities. He is now hosted by Utrecht University, leading the Open Kitchen pilot. Kevin is trained as an architect. He practices professionally in design and curatorial projects. He is part of research agency Gunkspace, with previous awards from The Creative Industries Fund NL, an exhibition at Dutch Design Week, and an ongoing collaboration on infrastructuring soil care with Wageningen University, AMS Institute, and Gemeente Amsterdam.

About 'Friends of the Future'

The Friends of the Future seminars are the Urban Futures Studio’s take on public seminars: warm, interactive, and focused on hope. Each month, we invite an academic, activist, artist, or practitioner to chat with us on the sofa in front of a circle of colleagues and guests. All are welcome.