Food Studio / future library
This recipe was developed by Valeryia Stsepantsova with help from her partner Mikael Hoa Nguyen, who currently works as a manager at Åpent Bakeri in Oslo. She is passionately working towards creating a sustainable future by bringing innovative ideas to life in the food industry. Born in Belarus, she also offers consulting by request.
Field notes from the process with us in Food Studio & the Future Library. It has been a long time since I have felt that I could say "we" in Food Studio. There have been many years where I have steered the ship alone, cut costs down to a minimum and only said yes to commissions I knew I could deliver on my own. But last year, when I was invited to take part in the exhibition "New Nordic. Food, Aesthetics and Place" at the National Museum in Oslo and had to dive into the archives for examples from the very first years, I felt that it is when I co-create with others in an interdisciplinary field that what I truly want to communicate finds its expression.
We were invited to do the meal for the gathering of the community of Future Library this year. To us it was such an honor to cook and nourish those people who come from all sides of the world to support this project by volunteering. Katie said that she didn't know she was growing not only a forest and an artist project, but a community that felt like family.
Every year, the Future Library seals a manuscript. A text that will not be read for a hundred years. The work is complete, given, gone. A book, a scroll, words held inside their wrapping, out of reach. This year, two authors crossed that threshold at once Tommy Orange and Amitav Ghosh at an evening conceived by artist Katie Paterson and hosted by Anne Beate Hovin who have shaped the Future Library in partnership since 2014.
A friend reminded me of this saying last Saturday, and it struck me that this was exactly where I stood. At that place where life really asks you to dance, and we are tested in our ability to meet all its facets. The conversation brought me back to the time when Beyoncé released the album Lemonade, and her process of turning the experience of infidelity into personal growth, resilience and healing.