Through a fold in time and a tear in space, it becomes possible for the difference of a thousand years, of a thousand stories of a thousand meals to rest layered, one and the same, collected within one person, one gesture, one ingredient.

For the Istanbul Biennale, the ongoing research into and creation of alternative archives was used to create a two-part project.

Part one included a series of ‘folded architectures’. Collected on a single sheet of paper, one element (an ingredient, a recipe) would be discharged to offer an exploded view—showing the individual parts and their lesser-known relations. These relations tell of multiple geographies traversed, of trade routes and the social and ecological consequences of resource extraction and forced movement. Folding the sheet, physically draws the connection between that which was assumed unconnected.

Part two took the museum to the public spaces—spaces that are overlooked but are the custodians of these quieter bodies of knowledge. These paper configurations became posters in the public spaces where these elements exist—market places, restaurants, shops, spaces of communal eating. A recipe fixed to a shop front would show how intertwined we all are; why we do what we do, who and what we hate and love and why. A note on the unconscious performances of histories and knowings that are embodied by one (un)national.