Somewhere
called
O'Higgins
THERE IS MAGIC IN THE HIDDEN AND UNEXPLORED, THE OVERLOOKED AND UNACKNOWLEDGED, WAITING TO BE NOTICED.
Traveling lets us see the world through different eyes, shifting our lens and exposing vibrant brightness. Sometimes we need the perspective of others to reveal our own surroundings; And to illuminate the obscure; To reveal the value of what has always been right there. This interfacing can make us stronger; More in tune with other communities, the landscape, traditions, cultural heritage, and ancestral knowledge, through care, nourishment and understanding.
The digital realm gives us the opportunity to collectively investigate, search, learn, taste, think, and exchange culture and knowledge, build common ground between diverse voices, and travel without physically traveling. By moving slowly, staying awake and reconnecting with our senses, we can open ourselves to the beauty and richness of our ecosystems and biodiversity, culture and personal stories, and the generosity of giving and receiving.
— PLATAFORMA CONBOCA
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Food Design Nation has been commissioned to create a Gastronomic Interpretation Center as part of the revitalization of the region of O'Higgins, just south
of Santiago, Chile, as a gastronomic destination.
ABOUT FOOD DESIGN NATION
We are the leading community of designers collaborating to redefine global food systems. We design frameworks addressing complex challenges facing our edible ecosystems, centered around culture, history and its relationship with food, arts and design. By providing spaces for reflection and dialogue, we feed intellectual beauty by documenting proposals and activities through periodical events and publications. We use food as a language without borders to integrate planet-driven values into our core practices.
— CARLA PEREIRA
Program
Exploring the cultural gastronomic landscape and interacting with generations of producers, artisans and homecooks that have passed on their knowledge over time connects us to a wider, symbiotic tastescape of flavour. The main goal steers towards promoting the revaluation of new and native traditions of O’Higgins. Through its rich heritage and knowledge, the value of this region south of the Chilean capital is to be reimagined and exposed using exhibits, artworks and installations within the CIG as innovative channels for its value towards the local, national, and global public.
A) SABORES DE O'HIGGINS
“The richness of a culture has a lot to do with the history of the food. The moment you take that away, you lose a big part of your identity. That’s why we have to be able to know what people in the past have cooked.” – Mehmet Gürs
When we look at ancestral recipes, we come to realize how incredibly diverse our foodways are. Recipes are built over time, a summation of places, people and stories. The people that have left their stamp on the cultural gastronomic landscape reveal worlds we have overlooked or discarded. Learning from the past enables us to reconstruct this knowledge and build a path toward the future. In association with the O’Higgins Restaurant Association.
Tracks of Exploration
B) INGREDIENTS
Installations, exhibits, and photographic and graphic mosaics of the food universe of the region.
Long-forgotten farmers of talent and taste from cultures and societies, some of which haven’t existed for centuries, developed heirloom varieties of almost everything we eat today to suit their individualized needs and desires. These seeds have been excluded from our plates in favor of homogeneous varieties that fit the needs of a globalized food industry, with little focus on taste or adaptability. The underappreciation and underutilization of these varieties is leading to the loss of seed diversity, which means a reduction in flavour combinations, an undervaluing of indigenous cultures, and a final end to the legacy of our ancestors.
C) PROCESSES
Installations, exhibits, and 9-12 explanatory diagrams of main avant-garde processes and ancestral techniques; collecting where and how food is transformed into ingredients or products.
Every culture has its own ways of recording its recipes and food cultures. They can be written, drawn, woven, or even passed on through stories. This transmission can be disrupted, and knowledge about traditions and techniques can quickly fade away. Traces remain for those who know where to look. Preserving ancient techniques and traditions defends our culture’s right to exist.
Hybrid Residency Format
The primary challenge we foresee running an international residency in a hybrid (digital) format is overcoming the distance between your physical location and CIG in O’Higgins. We have designed the program keeping this in mind, to best aid meaningful projects that do justice to our cause.
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As a hybrid resident, you will be paired with artisans from the O’Higgins region to collaboratively create a workable proposal. You will work together online. For non-Spanish speaking residents, translator services will be made available upon prior request.
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In addition to this, you will have access to a customized 1-1 deep dive virtual explorations of the region with the team leading Track 3.2.2 Paisaje - Persona - Producto.
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Content design of the functional unit will be worked on through conversations and participatory design activities with stakeholder networks in sessions coordinated with specialists where the elements, actors, landscapes, dishes and products with which the community of actors most identifies will be determined to generate an identity and representative bond of the sample.
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We will also organize a series of workshops and events to help make this process unforgettable: Five Curated Safari panel conversations to provide valuable insights in the form of unpitched narratives are scheduled. As are an interactive Roundtable with an intimate group to receive valuable insights in the form of cultural narratives and unexpected Serendipity interactions between local artisans from within and without the FDN community.
Tentative Schedule (Milestones)
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6 March 2022 - Application Deadline
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17 March 2022 - Results Announcement
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1 April 2022 - Hybrid Residency Program Commencement
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6 May 2022 - Work In Progress Review: Concept presentation
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10 June 2022 - Final Presentation: Artwork/installation formalization and craft proposal
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17 June 2022 - Exhibition proposal: Artwork/installation title + concept, formalization, exhibition + explanatory abstract 300 words.
— CARLA PEREIRA
Downloadable Resources
Supported by
In collaboration with
