groundtable

Saturday May 2: encountering the Kochbox by @groundtableee again, this time at the @humboldtforum , as part of the “Schicksal oder Wahl” Festival, co-curated by @dju.zi and Hai Nam Nguyen, in conjunction with the ongoing “Family Matters” exhibition (until July 12). I first met Gift and Kitman @giftlalicha @manonseat , the duo behind @groundtableee , at the Dealing in Distance Festival - Hanoi edition (there’s an earlier post of mine about them in Hanoi). It’s so great to experience the Cooking Box again, but this time in Berlin! What are also different this time around, other than the “box” is now round as it follows the shape of the Mechanical Arena, is that now my guys also got to order from the Kochbox after filling-up a questionnaire that explore their tongue’s memories of taste and textures. And then they got to see how they fill-out the forms get interpreted into a dish. (Psst: R ordered two times and changed his responses, so he got two totally different dishes. “Das macht spaß!” he said). He nibbled his food thoughtfully while comparing what he got with what he wrote down. Also, this time I joined inside the box to help prepare the orders for a tiny bit, as visitors are indeed invited to order and also to help inside. Now that is another level, facing the challenge of empathizing with the persons ordering, and trying to fulfill their wishes and longings, using only the available ingredients. It’s an exercise of practicing care with what we have at hand. Kitman & Gift,🫶🫶

January 2026 with Special thanks to our workshop collaborators @zelinseah @nguyenvuhai317 @anjelinededios @grandmadeadxh , we have learnt a lot from all of you and it was a great honour to get to be a part of the projects! we hope our paths will cross again in the future☀️☀️☀️ (-: Hanoi collaboration with @zelinseah @nguyenvuhai317 @anjelinededios thank you @goetheinstitut_hanoi Botanical afternoon tea time explores the entangled histories of plants, trade, and colonial migration through baking, tea-making, and food arrangement. Using ingredients in a hands-on activity and curated teas, the workshop reflects how cultural practices have shifted, adapted, and influenced the cultivation and distribution of plants. Being a meal and a map, it reveals how taste, memory, and ecology intertwine across time and geography. Ho Chi Minh collaboration with @grandmadeadxh Thank you @goetheinstitut_hochiminh Edible archives asks a central question: What do we carry with us when we move? Act I (closed session) the intimate dining session where artists and participants explore belonging and migration through an edible archive. Writing and drawing on Vietnamese rice paper, alongside making and eating spring rolls, unfold through roundtable exchange. Personal sauces offered by the artists open conversations on taste, memory, and change. Act II (open to public) The public are invited to activate the cooking box through enacting roles of the maker and recipient. The alternative ordering questionnaire acts as a facilitator from the recipient, the maker then interprets the form through food making. The deep-fried rice paper roll circulates their personal diasporic interpretations. Photo credits : top @goetheinstitut_hanoi , bottom @mini.creativestu Mini Creative Studio Thank you to everyone at the whole travelling dealing in distance festival team and participating audience 🫶🫶🫶

Our last stop of DiD festival in Ho Chi Minh city As we traveled through different locations, the cooking box was adapted to the local context. Thank you Red for introducing us the Xuan Ha that we get to collaborate with and based on Ha’s practice, we get to experiment with rice paper. Thank you Kha, the loveliest volunteers and regional team who had helped, supported and suggested our new facade attempt! Thank you coordinators and promotion team that had helped throughout the whole process. Thank you everyone who had volunteered to help and guided the audiences through our project, we are beyond grateful. Thank you once again the xplusx team who reassembled the cooking box and made sure it was strong and steady for the whole period. And big thank you for the studio ARTiculate who came back to participate. Thank you curu dalat who crafted the unique five flavours of drinks for us and for the beautiful instruction drawing. Thank you Mailan Thai and Geothe institute HCM that have warmly welcome us to the city. Thank you Xuan Ha for allowing us to be a part of your project! we get to learn a lot from you! Thank you to all the artists, Zelin, Duc, Nout, Xuan Ha, Sarnt, Nindya, Bilawa, Hang, Dan, Alvin, Jules and Hoang that we had the opportunity to exhibit alongside and got a chance to spend time with. We hope our paths will cross in the future. And lastly, we thank the audiences who had made the new flavours and connection of the city with us on this journey (-: All the video credit goes to @coffee_wl__ , photographed by @manonseat

✦ exhibitor spotlight ✦ ✦ groundtable Weimar Groundtable is a collective that investigates the idea of a universal food identity and the socio-anthropological dimensions of culinary heritage and migration. They explore the exchange of familiar and unfamiliar ingredients, recipes, histories, fictions, and imaginations. Using participatory methods like workshops and recipe sharing, they collaborate with local and international communities. Groundtable emerged in 2024 in Weimar, Germany, as the converging point for its founders: Gift, born and raised in Bangkok, and Kit, born in Hong Kong and raised in Perth, Australia. @groundtableee ✦ Hamja Ahsan London Hamja Ahsan is the founder of Zine Mela - the 1st South Asian Zine festival and distro. He co-curated DIY Cultures (2013-2017) the radical zine creative activist festival which transformed the zine scene nationally, local and Internationally from White hipster domination. He is a London-based artist, writer and curator has been collecting and making zines for over 30 years. He is best known for the book Shy Radicals: Antisystemic Politics of the Militant Introvert which also functions as a Zine distro focused on Neurodiversity, quiet revolution & autism. He is part of the Asylum magazine Radical Mental Health editorial collective. @shyradicals @zine.mela @diyzinebank ✦ ikkonzjin London / Beijing Focusing on the complexity of the human experience itself, Ikkonz’s work is a discussion of nature, emotions, environment and memory. Current forms of work include mixed-media paintings, printmaking, ceramics and artists‘s books. @_ikkonzjin — Outland Publishing Fair 2026 📅 17 – 19 April 📍 @copelandpark #outlandpublishingfair #artbookfair #zinefair #londonevents #publishing

Dealing in distance festival Hanoi It was our great honour to be a part of the DiD festival starting in Hanoi, traveling from north to south of Vietnam to Ho chi minh city. The festival went on in Bali and finished off in the Philippines. Our previous project, The cooking box, was developed and adapted to the different locations. We would like to express deep gratitude towards every team and everyone involved in gathering, building and making this festival possible. Thank you Red and Kha for supporting, connecting and helping us with everything from start to finish, thank you xplusx studio that helped us constructing the whole new dimension of the cooking box and testing out our project, also studio ARTiculate for participating in the performance. Thank you geothe institute hanoi team, Oliver, Mi, Jo and Thu for hosting and helped navigating us around Hanoi to be prepared for the set up and knowing more about the city. Thank you Hai, Zelin and Anjeline for the botanical afternoon tea time, the beautiful full-on sensorial workshop collaboration that brought us together, thank you for the great collaboration and the exploration around Hanoi together, we have learnt a lot from you! Thank you the amazing artists that we get to exhibit along the side, Nout, Zelin, Duc, Fungi, Bilawa, Nelden, Sarnt, Hang, Dan, Anjeline, Jules, Hoang and all the local artists that we get to witness and cross path with. And thank you the audiences that took part and share a part of yourself to the project. video credit to @nguyenvuhai317

Taipei art book fair 2025! a very first workshop we conducted at the event! thank you everyone who joined us 🙌🏽 thank you all the talented exhibitors for your energy! the taipei art book fair team and the visitors who stopped by and had a chat with us! photo credits : @taipeiartbookfair @bc.liu @weiweichen.co @manonseat

Botanical Afternoon Tea Time workshop: Through an exchange of tea practices, looking at how plants, people and culture shift and adapt overtime. A collaborative effort of @groundtableee @anjelinededios @nguyenvuhai317 @zelinseah with the curation of @red_anewdayhascome and coordination of @goetheinstitut_hanoi #dealingindistance #goetheinstitut #artfestival #participatoryart #culinaryintervention

our first art book fair in asia at @singaporeartbookfair ! lovely meeting all the talented people and seeing familiar faces! thank you the organisers for making the event ran smoothly (-: 🙌🏽

[DiD-HCMC] GẶP GỠ NGHỆ SĨ NHÀ BÊN | GIỮA MIỀN DI-DỊCH tại TP. HCM (English in the comment) groundtable là bộ đôi nghệ sĩ liên ngành tại Weimar, Đức, từ 2024, khám phá di sản ẩm thực và căn tính di dân qua không gian, đồ họa và hoạt động tương tác. Đến với liên hoan ở chặng TP. Hồ Chí Minh lần này, groundtable mang theo một thử nghiệm cùng nấu và ăn “Nhà Bếp Ẩn Danh”; và chương trình cộng đồng “Lưu trữ qua vị giác: Đi đường tay xách nách mang (gì)?” phối hợp với nghệ sĩ Xuân-Hạ. groundtable được dẫn dắt bởi Gift Lalicha Lalitsasivimol và Kitman Pik Chee Yeung. Gift kết hợp nghiên cứu và thực hành tuyển chọn, khơi gợi khán giả qua tường thuật không gian trên nền tảng kiến trúc nội thất. Cùng với Gift, Kitman khám phá di cư và bản sắc qua các can thiệp công cộng và hội thảo mang tính cùng tham dự (participatory workshops). Thực hành của họ tìm hiểu bản sắc ẩm thực phổ quát và sự di chuyển của tri thức ẩm thực xuyên biên giới. Xắn tay áo, lên tinh thần và cùng đắm mình vào những trải nghiệm đa giác quan nhé. 📸 Hình ảnh được cung cấp bởi nghệ sĩ — Được khởi xướng bởi bốn Viện Goethe ở Hà Nội, Hồ Chí Minh,Jakarta, và Manila vào năm 2023, “Giữa miền di-dịch” quy tụ các nghệ sĩ Đông Nam Á và các nghệ sĩ tha hương đang làm việc và sinh sống tại Đông Nam Á và Đức để tìm hiểu về chủ đề di cư và căn tính, di dịch. #Dealingindistance #Goetheistitut #Hanoi #HochiminhCity

[Time capsule: ._っ. 16 August 2025] Project ‘Cooking machine’ //displayed at 11m3 as the <From ground to table exhibition> This was our second configuration for the participatory installation of the rice porridge hot pot. Our reflection led us to see cooking itself as a temporal practice: hot pots are a accumulation of layered flavours and histories. When someone eats a dish in which another person has already stirred in an ingredient, they ingest both the flavour and the history of a previous gesture. This layering is a central metaphor for our work. The ‘cooking machine’ presents itself in a participatory, interactive cooking performance. The vendor is simultaneously an adaptable kitchen, with cooking units that transform for different cuisines. In compliment is the ‘cook to move’ cookbook, as a research on familiar recipes from our cultural backgrounds, and the adapted versions we experimented with the german pantry available. The supporting structure: the vendor trolley is made with the support of the wood workshop, and the bicycle wagon is made with the support of the metal workshop. A lot of the cooking equipment is found ‘/ zu verschenken’, from the streets of weimar, and borrowed from our friends. Our project addresses the core issue of migration through the ambassadorial role of mobile food vendors in the city, as we borrow its function for fast food distribution in the urban center. Thank you everyone who has made the cooking machine and the exhibition possible, the creative fund from Bauhaus-Universität for the finanancial support, @11m3_projektraum for the help and support in facilitating the space and everyone who came to support us (-: Photography by @giftlalicha @manonseat

September 2025 (-: Our stop at this year’s art book fair in Paris @madeanywhere.fr :-) It was so sweet to see everyone’s engagement in our new works, the fabric cookbooks, the ceramic earrings and our egg carton display💁💁! Thank you to the kindness of the old friends we met again🫶🫶and the madeanywhere team. Hope to revisit the poetic city of Paris soon again 🫆🫆

[Time capsule:August 2025] Project ‘Cooking machine’ //displayed at 11m3 as the <From ground to table exhibition> Our project addresses the core issue of migration through the ambassadorial role of mobile food vendors in the city, as we borrow its function for fast food distribution in the urban center. The ‘cooking machine’ presents itself in a participatory, interactive cooking performance. The vendor is simultaneously an adaptable kitchen, with cooking units that transform for different cuisines. In compliment is the ‘cook to move’ cookbook, as a research on familiar recipes from our cultural backgrounds, and the adapted versions we experimented with the german pantry available. The supporting structure: the vendor trolley is made with the support of the wood workshop, and the bicycle wagon is made with the support of the metal workshop. A lot of the cooking equipment is found ‘/ zu verschenken’, from the streets of weimar, and borrowed from our friends. Thank you for the creative fund from Bauhaus-Universität for the financial support in creating the <cooking machine> project. Photography by @giftlalicha