"Coastal Cookings: a Blend of Contemporary Art, Culinary Practices, and the Sea"

by Prof Gabriel N. Gee

Abstract:

Dialogues between culinary and contemporary art practices have surged in past decades, in parallel to a growing interest in environmental transformations and identity seen through the prism of food ecologies. Food allows for a reflection on processes of cultural development, as well as an investigation into the management of resources, the representation of natural and social inhabitats. This talk aims to reflect on the interplay between arts and the culinary, with a particular emphasis on coastal spaces and maritime encounters, as they come to channel histories of taste and migration, of embodied experiences evident in culinary traditions and cultures. The approach draws from a multi-folded practice developed over the past few years at the research group TETI, combining investigative research on site, oral history, culinary iterations involving collective dialogue and encounters, storytelling, poem-objects, and video production.

Biography:

Gabriel N. Gee is an art historian, writer and curator, based in Switzerland. He joined Franklin University in 2011, where he teaches contemporary art history and theory. His research interests include the arts of port cities, interconnected global histories, and contemporary artistic research. He edited with Caroline Wiedmer a volume on Maritime Poetics (Transcript 2021). He is the initiator and co-founder of the interdisciplinary study group TETI, (Textures and Experiences of Trans-Industriality), active through workshops, exhibitions, culinary events, and through a press, which recently launched a journal available online and in print: TETI Journal n.1 looked at “Transindustriality” (2024), TETI Journal n.2 (2025) explores the  topic of “Hybrid Marines”.