Fire-kitchen

Conceived by Johanna Dehio & Valentina Karga in Wien, Fire-Kitchen is a process in which raw materials are transformed into a usable kitchen unit and a fully set dinner table.

Fire-Kitchen is an exemplary process in which raw materials, food ingredients and clay, will be transformed into a usable kitchen unit and a fully set dinner table. It proposes an action that happens in public and is open to participation: pots, re stoves and tableware will be formed from clay and baked in a wood re, obtaining a black, matte surface through reduction and oxidation. At the end of the workshop a party has been organized, food cooked with the recipes from all participants and shared around the table.

Through hands-on work and sensual contact with the raw clay as well as the archaic experience of cooking on re, the understanding and accessibility of the complete production process is increasing, while the process itself is reduced in its complexity.

The project wants to raise our curiosity for the processes behind the things and how they are all interconnected: raw materials, labour, economic factors and resulting prices are often incomprehensible. The production conditions of low quality mass-produced objects re ect the little appreciation and lack of connection with the origin of the objects.