Nature is Healing presents the reflections of a character who has fled Brooklyn for the countryside during the spring of 2020. The protagonist documents her failed attempts at self-sufficiency and her efforts to reproduce the Instagram trends that surfaced in the early days of social distancing in New York City. She tries to grow a garden, keep scallions alive on her windowsill, make sourdough, and keep a journal. Every one of her projects wilts or goes bad. In the end, the solutions she finds for her problems are as absurd as they are instructional. With humor and melancholy, the work explores the pitfalls of avoidance in times of crisis, and the strategies we use to distract ourselves.
Critical Cooking Show is a collaboration between e-flux Architecture and the Istanbul Design Biennial within the context of its fifth edition, Empathy Revisited: Designs for more than one.