Riyadh: The Diriyah Biennale Foundation recently organized a workshop in Riyadh on the culture and politics of food as part of the Biennale Encounters year-long event series.
Artists Tayeba Begum and Mahbubur Rahman from the Britto Arts Trust in Dhaka, Bangladesh, gave a talk at the foundation auditorium.
The pair are running an artistic cooking project called Pakghor, the social kitchen. Last year, they set up an open-air kitchen at the Documenta fifteen, a contemporary art exhibition held in Kassel, Germany.
They had a Bengali domestic vegetable garden and cooked foods from 100 recipes representing 100 nations during the 100 days of Documenta fifteen.
During the workshop in Riyadh, Begum and Rahman shared stories and recipes from their social kitchen.
And they are due to bring their open-air kitchen to the Saudi capital, where they will share their recipes and interact with people from different nationalities.
Rahman said: “The most important part is interaction. The interaction of the family or the neighborhood.
“So, with this project, our target is to bring people together into a place to share their knowledge and their happiness.”
Rahman noted that replicating the same concept in another place, especially Riyadh, would be challenging due to the geographical and cultural differences.
“Saudi Arabia is a very dry country. And that is the challenge. But we hope we can do it because we are collaborating with a local farmer in Riyadh. We had a conversation with him, and he gave us a very good direction,” Rahman added.
The second workshop of the Biennale Encounters series, Njokobok, is slated to be held on Sept. 9 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., at the Diriyah Biennale Foundation auditorium.
The foundation has invited residents and members of different communities in Diriyah and Riyadh to cook one dish for the session.
