EXPECTATION

During the Ultrahospitality weekend we will perform a collective “ultratranslation” of “La cocina situada” (The situated kitchen), a book by our dear friend Marina Monsonís. Her book is a small “illustrated dictionary for food sovereignty”. It is carefully constructed from her many years of experience setting up and working with community kitchens in Catalunya. In this practice she connects “cookery to political, social and transgenerational projects aimed at stimulating debate, and on the transmission of knowledge about the complexities and conflicts within the concept of Zero Km”. 

We see an urgency in translating her work, due to both the content, and the way she writes about it. We want to translate it in a way that will situate it here, now, with all the complexities we collectively bring to that process. In that sense, what makes the “ultratranslation” “ultra” is that it is not limited to a seamless interlingual translation (e.g. from spanish to dutch), but rather that it is intralingual: an opening to situate the insights of the dictionary by rewording it into our own experiences, our backgrounds, contexts, by changing the ingredients of a recipe with things we have at hand, things that in some place are waste and in others are a spice, or sharing our own anecdotes. Unlike the singular, reliable and trusted voice of the professional translator, in our “ultra-translation” we invite an excess of hands and voices to the pot. 

During the weekend you will be able to browse the dictionary and choose to “ultratranslate” one or more terms, or even add new ones. The goal is that, by the end of the weekend, we will have translated the whole book together and will end up with an unruly, choral, popular bootleg deluxe edition.

Concurrent with the translation, we will be cooking with Marina, sharing and demystifying some abstract and complex concepts with the food. We will eat together and have a very long sobremesa, even perhaps a siesta, both of which are sacred proximity rituals rooted in Iberic culture. 

The weekend will also be a moment to host and celebrate all the people and communities that we’ve met since we started the ultrahospitality research last year. We will launch a second edition of two zines:  “How to set up a community kitchen” and “Sancochotopia”. Both zines were part of two events that took place in de Voorkamer in February and March 2023  <3. 

We will be joined by Marina Monsonís (Cuina del Macba) Alice Strete (Varia) María Angélica Madero, Mariana Murcia, Santiago Pinyol (Garage School) and Bambi van Balen. 

++ curriculum ++

Rather than a series of traditional presentations, or clear delimited events the two day school will unravel its curriculum in the experience of translating, cooking and, having a long sobremesas (after-meal) together. You can join for as long as you want on one or both days. The event will be comfortable and relaxed but does require active engagement. 

++ basic schedule (even though it may change) ++

DAY 1

*SOBREMESA ritual + Sancochotopia

When: Saturday May 13th 2023, 12:00–18:00 hrs

Where: BAK, Pauwstraat 13A, 3512 TG Utrecht

What: All day ultratranslation with long sobremesa, and a “Proximity ritual” guided by Marina. Launch of the second edition of the “How to Set Up a Community Kitchen” zine.

Program:
12:00 Open doors
13:00 Serve lunch

14:00 Sobremesa

16:00 Proximity ritual

17:00 Soft launch of the “Sancochotopia” zine

18:00 Open bar

DAY 2

*SIESTA Dreamwork + How to Set Up a Community Kitchen

When: Sunday May 14th 2023, 12:00–18:00 hrs

Where: BAK, Pauwstraat 13A, 3512 TG Utrecht

What: All day ultratranslation with long sobremesa and a SIESTA “Dreamwork” guided by Bambi. Launch of the second edition of the “Sancochotopia” zine.

Program:

12:00 Open doors
13:00 Serve lunch

14:00 Sobremesa

16:00 Dreamwork

17:00 Soft launch of the “How to Set Up a Community Kitchen” zine

18:00 Open bar

REALITY

The whole Ultrahospitality translation marathon weekend was chill af (said by many). A mesa corrida with very long sobremesas as proximity rituals where informality was the “pedagogy” and many translations took place. Doing things this way was one of the goals we had talked about with Marina: making an event with degrowth principles. 

On the one hand multiple translations were made by cooking: a situated but conflicted sancocho made from organic and local vegetables and ingredients from Albert Heijn, pestos made with discarded leaves and weeds foraged by friends, Kombucha and Artemisia Absinthe shared by Grace, a Stinging nettle potaje from leftovers in the kitchen and nettles from Clara’s garden, spicy-less aji by Juan Pablo, a dialogue between a cheese from la Garrotxa and Utrecht (maybe), mead from honey from Utrecht and Rotterdam, a gift of Mambe, honey beer and spices gifted by the Ethiopian Restaurant Sunshine next door, sticky willy water!, pears in a reduction of mead by Jeane served in discarded oyster shells from the market. On the other hand, many, many terms of the dictionary were carefully (ultra)translated by annotating on the margins of the original by many hands (soon scan upload!): sharing personal histories and recipes, finding unexpected coincidences, writing in multiple languages (Korean, Valenciano, English, Rumanian, Turkish), with and without “smart” phones, drawing new illustrations, hacking the terms, bringing new ones.

Both days we finished in the auditorium for a siesta, to channel and dream together under vibration and sound under the floating light sculpture by Bambi who already prepared us for the session with Artemisa tea foraged from the surroundings of their studio. One of the great accidents was the pleasure to have one of the sessions guided by the voice of Nova Ruth, who sang a prayer to the sea, which she usually sings before embarking on sailing.

We thank everyone who participated, despite the glorious day outside, and everyone and everything that participated in the making and cooking of the food we shared, human and non-human. And of course Marina who came all the way from her home to share her wisdom with us. Muchas gracias <3