A confluence of forces—human invention, neoliberal economic legislation, a wellness food trend, and patents taken out on nature—have led to the collapse of the Petorca River landscape in Chile’s Central Valley, erasing world-making livelihoods. Accountability stretches deep into the past when examining how the water crisis was enabled, and raises a question: can the idea of progress be challenged in favor of what Anna Tsing describes as “polyphonic assemblages,” transformative multi-species encounters that lead to collaboration rather than exploitation?
By examining an expanded list of ingredients in the eponymous recipe, The Avocado Toast explores how our appetites and ingenuity push ecosystems to their limit and enact expulsions elsewhere. If the places we “live from” are not the ones we “live at,” can we enact solidarity, shifting our patterns of consumption in order to truly live together with all non-human entities in this world?
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.
