“Land and Water” doesn’t start at a particular point, it is the name of a process, rather than a project with specific time and space. Its origins can be found in the previous actions of the Food Think Tank (“The Four Elements”, “Between the meadow and the forest”, “Orchard and Fire”). “Land and Water” reflects the stage on which past projects are finished, expresses what they lack and a desire to get even deeper into subjects already presented. Nobody wrote a scenario. The actions are spontaneous and open to the current needs of its creators. We call it democratic ostracism. I will explain how it works in practice.
Most of the people involved in creating “Earth and Water” cooperated with the head chef Tom Hartman in previous projects. This time he chose people on the basis of matching characters, skill assessment, but most of all, a s p i r a t i on s. They are strong personalities and important figures on the map of Polish gastronomy: Michał Czekajło (chef of Lwia Brama), Adrian Klonowski (chef of Metamorfoza), Piotr Ceranowicz (Chef of Kaskrut), Luiza Trisno (owner and chef of RAMEN GIRL of Yellow Dog), Michał Werda (Szajnochy 11), Marta Edmunds (chef of Lokal), Tomasz Trąbski (chef of Concordia Taste), Krzysztof Klimaszewski (shift manager in Vju Restaurant), Patryk Szczepański (confectioner of Hotel Hilton Gdańsk), Filip Kucharczyk (owner of Cafe Targowa and the brand Czarny Deszcz), Kristoffer Basznianin (one star restaurant in Copenhagen), professor Jarosław Dumanowski (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun). They are the pillars of the group and have isolated areas of the project under their custody. They work in separate fields – including fish, meat, root vegetables, amphibians and reptiles, insects, juicy and refreshing, desserts, coffee. Within the subject experiences they cooperate with young adepts of culinary arts – interns, students, enthusiasts. Parallel researchers from the Wroclaw University of Life Sciences (Anna Żołnierczyk, Marcelina Mazur) and artists responsible for: arrangement of space (Joanna Nowara), ceramics (Karina Marusińska), wood (Be Wood), visualization (Paul Koson), music (Wojtek Furmaniak) undertake their activities. The results of their work will be an essential element of our underground restaurant.
The process around the “Earth and Water” has a character of wholeness. The fact that it is a grassroots initiative of each participant, makes the project very dynamic. In such a situation it is difficult to talk about the “from-to” duration. In the “Earth and Water” we are performing our professional duties and pursuing our passions. We are constantly looking for reliable sources of information, and we compare them with a fresh perspective of people outside the industry. We study and talk about history, and above all we initiate countless experiments. The leitmotif unites us: land and water, and fields and laboratories in which we work differentiate us: kitchen, art studio, location, chemical laboratory, studio, office, field, forest, city and others.
We agreed to reveal to the group the effects of our exploration – failures and successes – in a forum, where all creators of “Earth and Water” can comment and compare them to their own experience. At this point, the individual experience involves the entire Food Think Tank. Threads intertwine and are no longer restricted to one thematic field. In addition, we collect all of the information and fill in the log of the project (running Agnieszka Szydziak), which organizes knowledge in two ways: chronologically and thematically. These records are enriched with photographic documentation (Jędrzej Stelmaszek).
Although all of this sounds a bit lofty, a process in which we participate is a pragmatic tool to develop important, but still crawling relationships in Polish gastronomy. “Land and Water” combines many different areas and we postulate to see culinary as a multidimensional phenomenon. Due to the multiplicity of perspectives, we learn to look at it this way.
Text: Agnieszka Szydziak, photos: Jedrek Sztelmaszek / GrappaStudio / and Natalia Wojtkowska / Szklarnia – The Greenhouse /
THE MATTER AND LABORATORIES
