Our Projects
The Traveling Kitchen is an extension of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library. Designed as an interactive social engagement art and education project, the Kitchen engages a larger audience in the conversation about bio-cultural heritage, agrobiodiversity, and the process of co-evolution that takes place through human activities in the field and in the kitchen.
Originally, the kitchen was conceptualized by Vivien Sansour and designed with artist Ayed Arafah, who constructed a modular wooden kitchen that when disassembled can fit in the back of a car. As Vivien puts it, “the Traveling Kitchen is just like a seed. It serves as a catalyst to bring forth a conversation about our bioheritage and engages people to take a deeper look into their personal stories and their relationship to what they eat”. But since its initial launch in 2014, the kitchen has grown wings and flown to different places in the world taking on different shapes and forms depending on where it lands. Whether it is in art galleries, community farms, or public spaces, the kitchen serves as a method of both research and engagement while providing nourishing meals that are shared collectively. Especially during these dire times of genocide and land desecration, Traveling Kitchen events create tender spaces where we can come together, share a meal, and feel the safety denied to far too manymany of us.
The Traveling Kitchen is our most important tool for bringing the Seed Library to the public because it is able to transform the seeds into a form all people understand: food. Designed as an interactive art and education project, the Kitchen engages audiences in an ongoing conversation about cultural heritage, agrobiodiversity, and the processes of coevolution taking place through human activities in farms, gardens, pantries, and kitchens.
For bringing the Traveling Kitchen to your university, farm, arts space, conference, or gathering, fill out our contact form with your proposal.
Fill the FormWe look forward to gathering around the table with you.
PHSL is an interactive art and agriculture project that also aims to start conversations, exchange knowledge, and share the stories of food and farming that have been buried away, waiting to sprout like seeds.
