Food, cities, and futures are transformed when groups of people come together to address urban issues and shift norms through countercultural practices. In two different areas of Amsterdam, Mediamatic and De Kaskantine can be seen as a dichotomy of art vs. practice, system vs. revolution, planning vs. improvisation, structure vs. impermanence, but these organizations reach beyond these binaries. Differences in history, location, purpose, and practices, their similarities touch each other in a broader perspective. Our question is: Can disruptive, systemic, temporary, and flexible projects create place and place identity using food as a major tool? How does it happen? What are the tools and processes we can we learn from these organizations? Can we scale them as examples of impact driven keys?
We embraced the process and observed how De Kaskantine and Mediamatic transformed these spaces into places: through purpose and vision (internal decisions), spatial use and occupation (physical context) and engagement with community and surroundings (dialogue and participation).
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Founded by Willem Velthoven, Mediamatic started in the 1980s with a focus on media technology, creating video art, installations, and performance productions. Over time, their focus has transitioned to creating interactive bio-art that integrates sustainability principles into their experiments. With the goal of working towards a circular economy throughout their projects, reducing waste, and using unconventional methods to accomplish them, Mediamatic seeks out artists, designers, and scientists who will use their labs as an experimental ground to explore new alternatives in light of the current problems of the urban food system.
“Location is your programme” Willem exclaims. Mediamatic views the temporary design of the space as a need to be flexible with their programming. He explains, “After inhabiting the 11 different spaces, it has to be organic. So that means that also the location that we find helps us decide what to do next.” In their current and much bigger location on Dijksgracht, they opened a restaurant and bar. Willem noted that every four years, plans are loosely constructed because there is always “an interesting sort of tension between making a policy plan and the practice which is more improvised. It is a combination of planning on a more abstract level and realizing the program on the most concrete level.”
Founded by Menno Houtstra, De Kaskantine started five years ago in Halfweg. The first project was in SugarCity, an industrial event venue and former sugar factory. After the two year lease ended, De Kaskantine moved to Amsterdam and transformed a vacant lot into a community restaurant and bar through the vision of urban farmers, artists, food protectors, chefs, designers and builders. Paul, the cafe and bar manager explains that “the original vision was a post apocalyptic restaurant and cafe so somewhere that can be sort of sustainable even if Trump starts a nuclear war tomorrow”
With a focus on food waste reduction, reuse of goods, and circular economy, De Kaskantine is founded upon an off the grid philosophy, aiming to independently supply enough food to sustain themselves.
De Kaskantine, invited by the building developers to help improving local dialogue and engagement, recently moved into their newest location months ago in Haarlemmerweg and will be relocating in December 2017. Paul explains that “building developers come in, [and] they want the big tower behind us to turn it into luxury apartments” when De Kaskantine leaves. The freedom to use the space comes together with the challenge of having it self sustainable and moveable: De Kaskantine will leave the area in the end of the year, when the hard construction starts, but it is also seen as an opportunity and challenge: “We almost have all the needs met just can’t quite make enough food yet. maybe our next location will have a much more bigger and fully functioning farm”
Although De Kaskantine and Mediamatic have different histories and visions for their organizations, both were invited by different actors to temporarily take over empty, abandoned lots in order to uplift the surrounding areas.
MEDIAMATIC
As soon as we arrive, through the glass windows there are plants and greens hanging. Between the railway and the watershore, the main house has the words Mediamatic written across the rooftop and tells train passengers that something might be happening down there. We walk through a small passage as the view opens. Welcomed by the greenhouse on the left and the “Clean Lab” on the right, the restaurant on the front, fabrics hanging spell FAMA from the top. It all mixes together and makes us feel like staying longer.
Mediamatic is a factory of multiple labs where their employees and interns make their visions happen, to be later enjoyed in the bar-restaurant by everyone who is interested. Mediamatic considers itself to be a niche organization. “You have to be motivated to pay attention to this kind of stuff”, says Willem.
Internally, they are most welcoming to like-minded artists and designers interested in tackling new issues. To show people what they do, Mediamatic organizes tours and events ranging from workshops through lectures, exhibitions and music performances. But their restaurant and bar with open kitchen and rocket stove is the meeting place for everyone. Food came as a big topic after the whole project moved to where it is now. “We didn’t have space for kitchen before, and now we do and it is opening us for new types of projects and vision”, says Maike, the programme manager. Combined with the easy to reach location, Willem believes that it is the reason for the increasing number of visitors finding it “cool” because “there is a sort of cross-polarization of minds that is happening”. However, artists and scientists discussing exciting topics and casual visitors usually do not mix. “The flyers are here but they sit here with their beer and their pizza and we sit there with people talking for three hours,” Willem describes.
In the past, Mediamatic has attempted engaging with the community by opening up a daycare service since they were located near social housing units. “We really looked forward to doing this kind of community involvement projects. (…) it failed miserably. (…) the main percentage of people participating in our projects still came from further away.” Since that project, Mediamatic has not attempted another project like this. Mediamatic’s presence improves neighborhood safety with its opens doors, but how does their method of placemaking build on socially inclusive belonging?
(own picture)
For the most part, Mediamatic aims at developing sustainable art objects. Not only objects but also social interactions reshape their space, though. Although invited by the municipality to uplift the area and reduce safety issues (a bar just across the road was the most complained about bar in the Netherlands), locals were at first skeptical about their presence. “They told us: No, not another public attraction! We already have enough pissing in the street” explains Willem. So Mediamatic installed outside toilets attached to their main building which have since been serving two functions. The first is to prevent intoxicated bar goers from peeing in the streets. The second is to reduce waste using the urine as nutrition for the plants.
Mediamatic has free hands with transforming their allocated space as long as it is in agreement with the neighborhood. Being part of collaborative neighborhood management planning, they meet neighboring organizations, local administration, business and other representatives every 6 weeks to discuss any issues and developments in 1.5-hour meetings.
DE KASKANTINE
source: http://www.kaskantine.nl
As we cycle through Westerpark we really can’t figure out if anything is happening in front of the construction site, absorbed by the front left space of the building-to-go demolished soon, between its 10 floor wall and the heavily green canal.
You really need to know where it is and want to go there to find it out from outside. Once the bikes are parked, the tall man with long hair smiles and welcomes us while waters the plants. Someone is cleaning the room inside, a greenhouse where leaves, water, fishes, tomatoes, a stoven, some smiling faces and a dog get together in a combined dance. It all seems just in the right place, and the sensation of being embraced suddenly works perfectly with the acknowledging that we are stepping in a post-apocalyptic solution proposal for the future of the entire humanity. There, facing the green canal, waiting for the build to leave, for them to leave together with it. Their garden feature an aquaponic system, mobile plant bins with different ecological substrates, using small modular growth systems of recycled materials. Everything is movable.
Situated on much smaller area than Mediamatic, next to an empty ING building from 1980’s, De Kaskantine resembles a living organism growing herbs and vegetables everywhere. To help with different projects, De Kaskantine engages volunteers who come from all over the world but also from the neighborhood. During the initial construction, for example, one of the goals of building developers was to include neighbors and neighborhood partners.
source: http://www.kaskantine.nl
How about further engagement with the local community? “Definitely we can include everyone. And we do” claims Paul.
Each of their customers needs to sign up to be a member. Members are automatically shareholders who collectively own 5% of De Kaskantine and by law, are invited to come to annual meetings and provide feedback or propose new ideas. This system lets De Kaskantine be closer to their customers. “I have had not anyone who walked away because they did not want to give us their signature”. Some people have questions but upon explaining the rationale everyone seems to understand and is happy to sign.
Paul has no doubt that the local community are their closest customers. Situated in the richer neighborhood, only a canal and a road divide them from the poorer area. To bridge these two demographics, they put up events, are in touch with the neighborhood organizations, and Facebook groups. But social pricing and donation based events are the major lever for this. Pizza nights are the most favourite, people pay as they feel and are treated equally. That way everyone can feel welcome. Another example of how they take into account their surrounding demographics is a music workshop during which DJ Rodney teaches local kids the art of DJing.
Even though not currently nurturing partnerships with other organizations, De Kaskantine is already in a partnership with a few Amsterdam-based organizations such as Kitchen of the Unwanted Animal or Guerilla Kitchen. The latter organizes their own wasteless dinners in the premises of De Kaskantine every Wednesday evening and a market on Saturday mornings.
THE CANAL, THE KITCHEN, THE FOOD, THE PEOPLE, THE CREATIVITY…
Both Mediamatic and De Kaskantine are examples of how can temporary, disruptive projects transform abandoned spaces starting from city’s needs.
Beside the obvious transformations that hands-on disruptive projects can make in a specific space, there are various approaches to this topic that result in complex impacts. Within 30 years of Mediamatic’s existence, they recently have integrated food as a part of their labs. Even though their facilities are open to everyone, the project focuses on the internal interests of the artists and the designers (Mediamatic’s rocket stove is presented as an artistic feature and the futuristic dinners show off a new and complex elite approach to future foodscapes); hence, their engagement with their surroundings only comes as an afterthought of their artistic experiments.
Menno created De Kaskantine with a passion for food sustainability. A leaderless organization, Menno’s vision of an apocalyptic restaurant and bar is imbedded in deeper meaning. De Kaskantine will move later this year, but their members will continue to follow De Kaskantine wherever they are located next. Almost every project of De Kaskantine is done in partnership with other organizations. Food is in the middle of all those relations: the stove, the middle of their kitchen, as an axius of connection, anchoring the vision where process is the main product: doing it, hands on, together.
About us:
We made a looong journey to get here. All four of the authors are passionate about food, eating and being together. Different backgrounds (and we are so happy with that), different experiences, always adds something. Like sugar and spice, being diverse makes it so nice 🙂 We really want to understand how food changes more than our own body, and can be a social transformation tool, one that makes cities better, people nicer, life tastier!
Enjoy! <3
Cat, Mónica, Xuanchen, Zuzana
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