ConviviumConvivium

Europe, like many other parts of the world, faces a range of urgent global challenges, from climate change and soil pollution to water scarcity and disrupted food systems. At the same time, the social composition of many European communities is shifting through migration and exchange. Food heritage — and the act of cooking and eating together more broadly — has the potential to bring people together where social, cultural, or political factors might otherwise divide them.

Convivium builds on the principles of the New European Bauhaus to develop new approaches to food heritage. By connecting science, technology, arts and culture, it places food culture at the heart of everyday life in European communities. The project works towards the following goals:

• To rethink and redefine food heritage — and cultural heritage more broadly.
• To revitalise traditional, sustainable food practices.
• To explore how food heritage can serve as a resource for culture, identity, inclusion, the economy, tourism, and territorial competition.
• To position citizens as food heritage stakeholders by connecting them to their local ecosystems.

For the Dutch contribution to the project, Nieuwe Instituut partnered with the University of Utrecht to further explore the role and potential future of gardens and kitchens in the city centres — brought together in The Open Garden and The Open Kitchen. Rotterdam and Flanders are its primary testing grounds, alongside other Convivium destinations in Coimbra (Portugal), the Lofoten Islands (Norway), Gdańsk (Poland), Flanders, and the Basque Regions (France, Spain). Contributing researchers include Rick Dolphijn (UU), Kevin Lai (UU), Justyna Jakubiec (UU), and Pia Canales (Nieuwe Instituut).

Through design and field research, The Open Garden addresses the challenges faced by contemporary community gardens. It tries to reimagine these gardens as places of care and ecological regeneration for multicultural purposes.

The Open Kitchen is a research-by-design study that tests, develops, demonstrates, and refines possible new forms of urban soup kitchen heritage. Working towards a design for a physical prototype of an open kitchen at the Nieuwe Instituut, The Open Kitchen explores how such kitchens can help inclusive and diverse communities in Europe — both human and more-than-human.

The Zoöp model, which was initiated and developed at the Nieuwe Instituut, is embedded at the core of the Convivium project. It adopts the Zoöp model to look at conviviality not only from a human, but also from the more-than-human perspective. By involving non-human entities, such as plants, animals and bacteria, it looks for ways to co-create in such way that It benefits all life.