boiling point: soft walls & open hearts
participatory installation
Each February Extrapool invites a small group of recently graduated artists to Nijmegen for a shared working period of some three weeks, closing with an exhibition that runs through the whole building, from kitchen to cellar. Boiling Point: Soft Walls & Open Hearts grew out of that residency, out of an interest in new ways of working and in meeting an audience directly. It took food as more than sustenance, treating it as a medium for emotional exchange and for connection between people. The exhibition space became a table, and recipes became vessels for personal stories and feelings, for experiences held in common. Ceramics, candles and sage set the tone of the room, holding it somewhere contemplative and immersive.
At the centre was an interactive performance. Visitors were invited to sit down, to take part and to add something of their own, setting out feelings and memories in the language of a recipe until they became co-creators of the work, moving together through vulnerability and openness. The line between audience and artwork thinned, and what was left was closer to reflection and conversation than to viewing.
The project asked its audience to feel the fine balance between intimacy and exposure, between the personal and the collective. Through the meeting of the culinary and the performative with a quieter ritual register, it pressed on the usual boundaries and offered instead a space where emotional nourishment and a kind of tranquillity could gather. It was here, at this table, that the research behind The Kinship Cookbook first began.