Public Kitchen Art Commission Posted

Call to Artists / Request for Qualifications

The Design Studio for Social Intervention seeks an artist / culinary team to collaborate with us on the “Public Kitchen,” the first commission in DS4SI’s series “The Public: A Work in Progress.”

As public infrastructures--hospitals, water, schools, transportation, etc--are privatized, the Public Kitchen takes a stab at going in the reverse direction. It is an installation designed to help us realize that the ways in which public infrastructures can improve the quality of our lives is still a work in progress.  We still have room to imagine the futures we want to create! Doing this takes experimentation and creativity.To spark that, the Public Kitchen is a “productive fiction,” and as such it’s our experimentation with a new, more vibrant social infrastructure that:

• Challenges the public’s own feelings that “public” means poor, broken down, poorly run, and “less than” private
• Engages communities in claiming public space, the social and food justice
• Makes a new case for public infrastructures through creating ones that don’t exist

Our goals for the commission are to show how this kind of infrastructure might improve people’s private and public lives, as well as to make a case for public infrastructure in general. The way in which the commission points back to a point of possibility for public infrastructure and in real time is a delightful experience for its participants is part of the design challenge for this commission.

Commission Delivery:

We are looking for an artist / culinary team with the vision and skills to build out and program an “outdoor open kitchen” for a week. Programming could include classes, competitions, recipe sharing, co-cooking culturally shared ingredients, etc. People from surrounding neighborhoods should be able to cook, share recipes, talk food, and eat at Public Kitchen. For more ideas on what the Design Studio has already done around the Public Kitchen, check out the video from our indoor installation during Roxbury Open Studios 2011: /blog/2011/11/8/public-kitchen-the-video.html

The commissioned team will get:

• $4,000 commission, plus $1000 budget
• A space near Uphams Corner for their installation of the Public Kitchen
• A built brick stove from Bread Oven
• Free fruits and vegtables from Fair Foods

Process / Timeline:

August 3rd	Artist submissions due
August 7th	DS4SI selects and notifies 3-5 finalist teams
August 9th—13th	DS4SI interviews finalists
August 15th	Selection and notification of winning artist
September-October	Installation implementation.  Note: the selected artist will be expected to spend 15 hrs with DS4SI on installation design and testing. The final installation must run for a week and be completed by Oct 31st.

How to Submit:

Please read full submission requirements here.