The Food Lab Residency brings Netherlands based culinary artists to Cove Park to experiment, develop, and nurture their food focused projects. The residency is devised in partnership with The Food Lab of the Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, and launched in 2022 with Amsterdam based artist Suzanne Bernhardt. This year we welcome back Food Lab coordinator Marente van der Valk, and artist and chef Aslı Hatipoğlu. The residency will culminate in the 2023 edition of the Food Art Film Festival ‘Taking Root’ presented in collaboration with CCA Glasgow. This programme is generously supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the UK and Mondriaan Funds.
Aslı Hatipoğlu
Aslı Hatipoğlu is a Netherlands based interdisciplinary artist and a self-taught chef who uses food as a focal point to investigate interwoven themes of psychology, science, political ecology, ancestral knowledge, spirituality, and mental health. Completing her bachelor at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, her work is influenced by her background growing up with a migrant Thai mother in Turkey where her father had a tourism agency. Asli curates participatory dinners that shed light on food history as well as question how climate change, agricultural politics and current technological developments are changing our contact with food. Through lecture performances with a pinch of satire, Asli brings a critical perspective on the definition of words such as ‘locality’ as a means to re-define them in the complexity of systems. As an antidote to nationalism, she proposes fermentation practices to raise questions around cultural history, locality, tourism and the dogma of economic necessity. Asli believes in the power of psycho-somatic relation to food. She creates interactive installations that bring a layer of humour around self, perception and deception.
Marente van der Valk
Marente van der Valk is a Netherlands based culinary artist and chef who also coordinates the Food Lab at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht (NL). The Food Lab has been created to offer a multidisciplinary platform to chefs and artists with an interest in food. Its primary function is to enable these individuals to collaborate and explore new techniques, sciences, sensory and artistic interpretations and responses so that they may delve deeper into the topic of food as a global phenomenon. This artistic dialogue cultivates new approaches and brings forth originality to Marente’s own cooking processes and work as a culinary artist. She focuses on projects and events with an emphasis on environmental awareness, community mindedness and the social importance of food as well as the ephemeral and poetic qualities of food and the act of cooking and eating together. Her work is often a multi-sensory experience where a love for bringing people together results in a wealth of flavours and colours and a feel-good atmosphere.
