Date | 6 June 2025 9:00-11:00 |
Venue | The Kitchen / Central Location |
Price | Free |
Language | English |
Off the Table - Sympose ! Contemporary Perspectives on Nutrition, Sustainability, and Food Culture
Nicolaj van der Meulen (CH) , Nexus Collective // Andrea Borghini (IT) // Mets tes palmes (CH) // Arts of the Working Class (DE)
The Assembly questions the standardizations of contemporary, predominantly Western food culture. Taking the table as a central paradigm of culturally shaped eating practices, the project aims to identify and implement both practical and discursive alternatives. It positions itself as a contribution to transforming current food culture, with a focus on urban contexts in Switzerland, particularly Basel and Vevey. The project launches at the foodculture days in Vevey. The first phase, Sympose!, centers on a blank white canvas on the floor, inviting reflection on the aesthetic and social significance of the table in relation to food and communication.
Individual tablecloth by Arts of the Working Class.
Host:
Nicolaj van der Meulen is Professor at the Academy of Art and Design in Basel (FHNW), where he leads the cross-university teaching programme CoCreate and heads the Food Culture Lab. He studied Art History and Philosophy in Berlin and Basel. His work explores theories of pictorial, aesthetic, and artistic practices. Recently, his practical and theoretical focus has shifted toward aesthetic judgment, as well as cooking and eating as aesthetic practices.
Contributors:
Andrea Borghini is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Milan, Italy, and director of Culinary Mind, international center promoting philosophical thinking on food. Through his work, Andrea designs conceptual tools that reshape food systems to meet global challenges, including climate change, hunger, and inclusivity.
The NEXUS Collective was founded in 2024 in Basel out of a shared drive for creation and a desire to rethink societal structures. It explores how collaborative creative processes can challenge existing norms and shape alternative realities, viewing the dominant narrative of reality as oppressive and exploitative.
Over time, the focus has naturally shifted toward food. The NEXUS Collective understands food— from seed to production to consumption—as both a form of resistance and an artistic practice.
Mets tes palmes is a feminist, queer, and intersectional collective founded in 2020 in Vevey. It publishes a magazine featuring a wide range of contributions (articles, poems, illustrations, interviews). The editorial process is collaborative and self-managed, from writing to graphic design, with a strong focus on local printing and distribution in French-speaking Switzerland. In parallel, Mets tes palmes organizes cultural and activist events (launches, exhibitions, workshops) and is committed to a decolonial, ecological, anticapitalist, and antispeciesist approach. For foodculture days, the collective is represented by its two members Julie / Julot Wuhrmann and Amina Jendly.
Arts of the Working Class (AOWC) is a Berlin-based multi-lingual street journal on poverty and wealth, art and society: Arts of the Working Class is published every two months and contains contributions by artists and thinkers from different fields and in different languages. Its terms are based upon the working class, meaning everyone, and it reports everything that belongs to everyone. Everyone who sells this street journal earns money directly. Vendors keep 100% of the sales. Every artist whose work is advertised, designs with us its substance. AWC is published by Paul Sochacki and María Inés Plaza Lazo for the streets of the world.
IG: @nicolajvdm @hgkbasel_cocreate @nexus__collective @mets.tes.palmes
https://www.fhnw.ch/de/studium/gestaltung-kunst/cocreate
https://sites.unimi.it/borghini/
https://nexuscollective.cargo.site
https://artsoftheworkingclass.org/
Photo Credits: Pauł Sochacki