Alchemical Kitchen

Alchemical Kitchen was a five-day artist residency at Padiglione Chiaravalle in Milan (IT), exploring fermentation as both a material and metaphorical practice, developed by The Gramounce researchers and tutors Kevin Bellò and Inês Coelho da Silva, guest artist Inés Ballesteros, and Terzo Paesaggio. Rooted in the word fermento - understood as a process of transformation in collaboration with microorganisms and as a state of cultural and collective unrest - the residency asked: how can we reimagine spaces of learning, living, and cooking in times of systemic transition?

Set within the garden and architecture of Padiglione Chiaravalle, participants co-inhabited the site through tented sleepovers, collective meals, and open-ended creative processes. Together, they reimagined the structure of a shipping container as a site-specific Alchemical Kitchen: a place where matter and meaning ferment side by side. Artists, chefs, foragers, architects, performers, curators and researchers gathered around bubbling jars, dyed textiles, and speculative blueprints to explore fermentation not only as technique, but as an ethos of care, co-creation, and transformation.

Daily practices included wild fermentation experiments, workshops on microbial kinship, storytelling sessions around the fire, and collective design moments guided by instinct, ecology, and embodied research. Soundscapes mingled with the scent of pickled air; lacto-fermentation jars sat beside plant-dyed fabrics; thoughts fermented alongside cabbages and sourdough starter.

Alchemical Kitchen had the collaboration of Davide Longoni, and was part of the Corvetto Vettabbia Chiaravalle Learning Landscapes, a long-term initiative by Terzo Paesaggio supported by Fondazione Cariplo.

This workshop had the participation of Luz del Carmen, Luca Conte (aka Gerolamore), Stefania De Leo, Denise Di Summa, Laura Falorni, Elda Isavelina, Giacomo Lorandi, Federica Miliani, Amiel Giusti Pastore, Teresa Satta, Alexandra Valahu, Aglaé Jarrt Wilson.

Check the website of Terzo Paesaggio.
Check the website of Davide Longoni.
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