Artist duo Cooking Sections have ventured into the Turkish pudding business, selling traditional buffalo milk dishes from an Istanbul storefront to help sustain a pastoral culture endangered by the food boom. government building.
The project, called Wallowlandpresents research by London-based Cooking Sections, founded by Alon Schwabe and Daniel Fernández Pascual, into the centuries-old heritage and ecology of buffalo farming on the outskirts of Istanbul, a city of nearly 16 million people. residents.
“Bison herding is a practice par excellence around Istanbul. With all the different threats of urbanization, we wonder what we can do to ensure the sustainability of this practice. How to empower pastoralists and equip them as the landscape changes? ask the artists.
Longevity is at the heart of the duo. their openness Climavore The project examines how climate change is both fueled by and transforming the way we eat, and included an installation at the Tate in 2020 that prompted the museum to remove salmon from its menu. Wallowland reconfigures the entry of eco-artists to the Istanbul Biennale 2022 and a 2021 exhibition at the SALT Beyoğlu arts center in Istanbul.
Prized by Turks for their creamy milk, Istanbul’s buffalo population has plummeted as the city encroaches on outlying forest, farmland and drinking water sources. The government has razed 13 million trees to build a highway and an airport in the north of the city, and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has pledged to dig a $15 billion canal which he says would “ensure the safety of life and property of Istanbul’s Bosphorus and the citizens around it,” but according to scientists, it would destroy the remaining grasslands, turn half of Istanbul into an island, and make the sea anoxic.
Pudding sales will help support ranchers, while the bison festival, first held at last year’s biennale, will become an annual event.
