Sesión 7: El testimonio

In this section, I will describe the first uAD intervention out of the house-garden-and-kitchen tripartite. “Recup’Kitchen” (RK) will be briefly described through its gover-nance, spatial orientation, program, support, and appreciation. Also, I will inexplicitly reveal some of its situated knowledges through reconstructing lived experiences in the imagine, scout, construct and care framework.

GOVERNANCE / Recup’Kitchen is a mobile kitchen that uses recuperated food left-overs to bring people together around the table in public space. The idea got launched in May 2015 via the “Brussels Good Food 2020” creative call for ideas. Since then the three initiators of the RK concept have been looking for more volunteers to join. Through open calls for participation and a crowdfunding campaign, the core group has expanded and changed. Still today the project is open to new people and input in line with its core ambitions.

The project aims to create social cohesion in public space and address the problem of food waste. Through collective cooking, Recup’Kitchen shows healthy and sustainable dishes do not have to be expensive and can be delivered in a solidary economy. Partici-pation is required to make this happen.

Today the project runs on a core team of around ten volunteers that invest them-selves according to their energy. This core group has founded a nonprofit structure (Recup’Kitchen asbl). The decisions are made collectively during their monthly meet-ings in which the responsibilities for the organization and practical running of RK are shared. Newcomers are warmly welcomed, yet not always evident to attract. Besides, the collective can count on many other volunteers that assist in the cooking or help out in cleaning the dishes.

RK looks for synergies with other local projects and associations. Currently, the team looks to expand the project by creating a cargo bike kitchen in order to travel more

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within Brussels.

SPACE / The idea emerged at Josaphat’s ground and in relation to the Jardin Latinis garden. The ambition has always been to be mobile and to be able to travel to other pub-lic spaces in Brussels to instigate debate through cooking and eating together. However, due to administrative reasons, the “roulotte” (circus wagon) that hosts RK (see00.04.fig.

2) has never moved from Josaphat since it was parked there in 2015.

Being one of the first initiatives of self-proclaimed transitional use at Josaphat, the kitchen had its role in setting up facilities like installing an electricity connection and providing a –although tiny- space for shelter and storage in addition to the kitchen.

PROGRAM / Starting from cooking as an assembling force, RK has social aspirations.

Also, the project challenges the consumer-oriented use of public spaces and demands active participation. As people gather around to table to cut vegetables or taste the dishes, conversations naturally come across Josaphat and her being as –in summer- qui-et natural zone and to-be-developed area of regional interest. In this sense, the kitchen project functions as a catalyst for urban awareness and trigger for political debate.

Through a free donation price, Recup’Kitchen wants to be accessible and solidary.

Through its small scale functioning, RK shows that other types of economies are possi-ble. This statement relates to food sustainability, questioning food waste and advocating awareness of food as a common resource.

SUPPORT / The mobile kitchen has been financed through a crowdfunding campaign –through the Grow-funding platform- in which more than 150 donations have been received to obtain the required 7000 euro to set up the initiative. Since then RK has been self-sustaining thanks to its strong team of dedicated volunteers and supported by income generated through its activities.

Recup‘Kitchen’s offers soups, salads, quiches, dishes, and local and biological drinks at a price that is free to choose. Important is that the service offered is not for free and de-mands active participation as well as minimal contributions in order to cover the costs and keep the project ongoing.

Moreover, the RK team from time to time engages in a catering activity –for which it receives numerous requests. This activity is quite exhausting for its team but allows to bring in some money that can compensate for the pro-bono events the RK team also engages in.

In order to recharge the human energy and fight fatigue, RK’s activities change gear during the winter period and move to a lower event rate. However, behind the screens, meetings and administrative work continue all year through.

Currently, the team is saving up for new investment; a cargo bike kitchen that would allow to more easily expand the activities beyond Josaphat. On the long term, the RK team dreams of being able to employ someone to facilitate the organization and to man-ifest meaningful jobs can be found through altering practices.

APPRECIATION / Recup’Kitchen started from spontaneous ideas and ad hoc aspira-tions emerging from the field. No business plan was set up, and the crowdfunding had been a process of learning by doing. The continuation of the project and the strategic decisions made are firmly based on the concerns and desires of the volunteers that make up its core team.

When the project got launched through its crowdfunding campaign, nobody had a clear vision on what the project would become and how it would function. Step by step -as the first hurdles were taken- the group built up a way of functioning and strategies

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for organizing activities and partnerships. Still today a lot of RK’s functioning is steered by serendipity.

Recup’Kitchen is highly dependent on its volunteers. Something which can be felt now as the general energy is low and the project is facing difficulties in launching this year’s summer season actively. RK exists due to its generous funders; this makes people’s par-ticipation an existential attribute of this project. Something RK values as a quality that resulted in strong autonomy and legitimacy as well as solid grass-roots support.

RK is eager to reach out to non-evident locations and refreshing partnerships. Using public space in a way that citizens are not used to, RK brings about an intriguing dy-namic of surprise and spontaneous conversation that shows to reach interesting depths.

Through food as connecter, non-evident groups of people come together in an unfa-miliar setting, RK as such manifests different ways of engaging in the city are possible.

As a nonprofit organization RK focuses on remaining self-sustaining and carries the ambition to grow sustainably. With the free-to-choose price, the initiative illustrates that public space does not have to be a place of consumption. In contrary, RK values partici-pation –helping in the cooking or by cleaning the dishes- over monetary contributions.

In the end, it is this energy of reciprocity that keeps the team of volunteers going.

REFERENCES / In addition to the situated knowledges obtained through the de-sign-based participatory action research: (Carlot, 2016; Ezelstad, 2016; Growfunding / bxl, 2015; Masson-Loodts & Raevens, 2017; Nostalgie, 2016; Recup’Kitchen, 2016; Van Reusel, 2016a, 2016b).

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< 00.04.fig.1 – People are gathering around the table at Josaphat, May 2017. Photo by Toha De Brant.

00.04.fig.2 -RK during an event of Schaarbeek laat, June 2015. Photo by Mathieu Simonson.

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REC.2015.05.31 – Imagine: A recipe for bxl Good Food 2020

I am at home at my parents’ place, kilometers away from Josaphat and Brussels. I am behind my laptop and edit the last changes to the illustrations I have been working on these last days. We had bumped into the “Creativity call for Brussels 2015”. The call aims to be an “urban brain-storm” and trigger sustainable innovation considering food in the city, more particularly Brussels.

Last minute we decided to go for it and to propose our idea for a kitchen at Josaphat.

Until then it had been no more than a vague dream, exciting imaging that had popped up during my first visits to Josaphat in the company of Paula –active in Commons Josaphat- and Mathieu –who initiated the Jardin Latinis. The nomadic garden was just getting feet on the ground, and so we wonder: what if we would have a kitchen to invite more people? What if we could bring it to the nearby industrial zone and connect to the people working there?

It long had been a “silly” dream, wishful thinking. However, maybe we could at least share our ideas, give them some more consistency?

With the Creative call for “Brussels Urban Food 2020” we were nudged to put things to paper. Both in wording as in visuals (see 00.04.fig. 3). We naturally connect our idea for a kitchen in a maritime container within Josaphat’s self-organized temporary use to a long term vision; 2025 the year in which the first phase of Josaphat’s development is supposed to be finished. Our envisioned kitchen relates to the just emerging nomadic garden which we imagine to later transit into urban agriculture with an open market hall. This hall would be an incubator for the exchange of food through a commons dynamic. An aspect inspired by Commons Josaphat’s (2015b) proposal advocating local and social employment, taking part in a genuinely sustainable neighborhood.

We have seen what Josaphat’s garden and the monthly picnic the commons events could lead to. Maybe a kitchen on Josaphat. Maybe –in the long run- a different relation to food production and consumption in our city.

Working on the proposal feels natural. It seems evident, based on our shared ambition to manifest the more strategic vision of CJ with the desire for physical and hands-on interventions.

It is fun, making explicit how imagined interventions at Josaphat now could impact and transit into its planned future. I can weave in my urban interest with the everyday of gardening and eating together as social condenser –as I had learned to appreciate it through the picnic events. I enjoy to bring out the debate led by CJ concerning a propos-al for concrete action, but propos-also in to imagine projects and manifesting them as sustain-able and innovative if only by making them enter through the framework of the call. The written articulation gives body to our dreamy ideas. The idea -sliding into a more robust concept- gets its name “Recup’Kitchen”.

The most joy, though, I find in making the illustrations. Hand drawn images brought together in digital collaging. Simple drawings that represent what was already there, just building up and linking it to our imaginations. Sketchy, yet with detail to it and taking into account the lived experiences at Josaphat. Not very clean and indeed not finished as they bring about the more lengthy process of dreaming that is still on-going and changing. Quick, yet open. A tool to bring out and communicate our forming ideas and ambitions.

It is a somewhat impulsively driven process, and we just had made it just in time for

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the deadline. We genuinely believe in it. Did we know what this ad hoc articulation of our simmering ideas would trigger…

REC.2015.11.01 - Scout: Preparing the crowdfunding

It is a beautiful autumn day, we are lucky. With some of the initiators of Recup’Kitch-en, we meet at Josaphat. We gather around the red painted table that Mathieu and I have recuperated and that forms the central point of the activities.

Our crowdfunding campaign –on the Brussels Growfunding platform- is about to launch in a couple of days. Through a call, we have gathered more participants to join the project and to help to formulate its ambitions. We have our project description ready. Last work to be done now is to shoot a short video that could present our Re-cup’Kitchen idea to a broad audience.

As we discuss the shooting process, more people join. Neighbors and gardeners are crossing us, curiously come and have a look at the installation we are setting up.

I take out the drawings that I had prepared beforehand. Again hand-drawn, sketchy and simple representations (see 00.04.fig.4). Lines that I have carefully traced with the images I have picked up from our group discussions. This time the kitchen comes in the form of a caravan. Mobile, as we want to be able to travel beyond Josaphat and seek connections to other public spaces in Brussels. The caravan opens up with a big window, behind the glass there is the silhouette of a person. In addition there are illustrations of fruits and vegetables –the food surplus we aim to recuperate-, of a table with many chairs –the convivial encounter we want to trigger-, a piggy bank –the free-at-choice price-, and a photo of the current state of the Jardin Latinis garden at which we plan to embed our kitchen. The later provides the background for our imaged dream.

The illustrations represent our core ambitions, which we have articulated in the state-ment text for the crowdfunding campaign. Through the concrete project, they articulate our values and show how they can be acted out. It renders our ideas explicit in relation to our more visionary ambitions.

We run through our statement text for the last time and shoot the material for a video in which the many voices –and accents - of our participants express what we imagine RK to be. We create a visual play by moving around the illustrations, bringing them in and out the picture according to our statement.

“Recup’Kitchen. A mobile kitchen for everyone.

Hello! Hi. Bonjour! Hello, we are the Recup’Kitchen team.

A mobile kitchen that will be set up in a caravan at the Josaphat site in Brussels.

We need seven thousand euros to build it. Recup’Kitchen will help to promote healthy food.

And farm-to-table food. We cook meals, and you pay as you can, starting at a minimum price.

Recup’Kitchen will also be a meeting place at the Josaphat site to daydream, chat, take a break and create bonds.

To set up this project, we need seven thousand euros, a helping hand or you to spread the word. Thank you.

Support us at… www.growfunding.be”

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(“Growfunding. Recup’Kitchen [film],” 2015)

Every shot we make mistakes, we laugh. So no the result is not perfect as we stop after three shootings. I am happy as the many voices and hands represent our collectivity, scouting the possibilities for a shared imagination. The project has shifted through the blending of our objectives, interests, and desires as the “we” behind the project has been shifting.

REC.2016.03.30 – Construct: Getting ready to open

We did it! We successfully have made it through the crowdfunding campaign and have obtained the required 7000 euros to kick off. A multitude of small donations has brought us there. Today we need to get this done and keep up our promise to our gener-ous supporters.

We do not have much of a clue on how to pursue. We had focused on buying a circus wagon that we would transform into our mobile kitchen. So here we are today. Our quite spacious “roulotte” has been installed at Josaphat, close by the Latinis garden. In one month we plan our big opening event. The kitchen still has to be made.

Today I meet at Josaphat with Mohamed and Reindert. We are crouched over the floor of the wagon as we pass our hands over a grey vinyl floor covering. Earlier this week I have bought this leftover piece in one of the local shops with a friend — leftovers at dumping prices, very much us.

We are pressing the vinyl to the irregular sides of the roulotte to cut out the shape with precision. Carefully we tape the sides off, and to our frustration, we notice air bumps did manage to come up, despite our meticulous efforts.

As the light of this early spring day fades away, we call it a day. We clean up our material and will continue later to fix the floor further.

To be honest, we improvise. We all bring in the few things we know and accept the imperfect results that come out. After all, we are creating this kitchen ourselves, with our bare and diverse hands from an idea over funding to its construction now, making our imagination to become true in physical intervention.

We go for it with an intensity and conviction that we do not understand ourselves. An aspiration for relation values drives us; favoring the local, reuse, collective work, doing things ourselves. In the kitchen’s creation, we express our shared longing for a different way of acting.

So no, the result is far off perfect. And I have to start to except that this kitchen –with these aesthetics- won’t end up in architectural magazines. I have to accept that not ev-eryone will take this as a serious urban architectural intervention.

But I do. And here we are, actually building our kitchen. Carefully cleaning its interior, branding its image with a red touch of paint on its exterior. It has been made by many hands, funded by many donations and we share our making process enthusiastically with our supporters through our Facebook page.

Soon we will invite our donors and celebrate Recup’Kitchen’s existence with them.

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REC.2016.07.17 – Care: Cleaning the dishes

Summer, Josaphat radiates its most energetic vibe. Nature in bloom, the self-pro-claimed for transitional uses in full action.

Today with CJ I organize one of the happenings of the “wasteland FESTIVAL de la friche”. Today the weekly meeting of the gardeners and the regular cooking session of Recup’Kitchen are complemented with a debate. Hoping to inspire the civic agents at Josaphat as well as beyond we have programmed informal presentations by Communa asbl and Aurelie De Smet. Today’s thematic session brings together concrete expertise and academic knowledge on the potential of temporary/transitional use in the city.

Most of us are in a state of satisfaction as we have just enjoyed a lavish buffet of mixed vegetable dishes. I feel empowered as I have nurtured my body with pure and healthy food. It brings me fulfillment to realize I took part in the preparation of this abundant amount of colorful and tasteful dishes we have enjoyed together.

The presentations –that I need to introduce- will soon start. I first allow my eyes to gaze over Josaphat’s open landscape. Its yellowish green. I become aware of the tinkling cutlery and light chatter that I hear in the background of this scene. As an automatism, I pick up some of the empty pots that are left on the table and bring them over to a flipped over cable pulley that serves as a table.

I start to rinse the dirt off the dishes and pick up a sponge. Maïté picks up a towel and takes over the plates as I have cleaned them. I become aware of the tiredness I feel, but I know the work is far from finished.

I start to rinse the dirt off the dishes and pick up a sponge. Maïté picks up a towel and takes over the plates as I have cleaned them. I become aware of the tiredness I feel, but I know the work is far from finished.