During the final three months of the year 2021, we organised the Feast festival at Kafkárna. Its focus was food and the environmental issues connected to it. The festival took place at a regular rhythm of Thursday evening feasts, where everyone was welcome to join. Participants included local neighbours, members of the professional community, and students. One of the project’s aims was to build a functioning community around the fascinating environment of the garden and studio of the historic Kafkárna, which had been used by students of the UMPRUM Sculpture Studio for the previous three decades. It was this studio that was beginning to develop a vision for Kafkárna’s future as an open place where art and ecology could intersect. The Feast festival was the first major step in this direction, organised by architects MAK! (Mobile Architectural Office) together with UMPRUM teachers and students.

Inside the monumental studio, filled with layers of sculptures, moulds, and memories, we built a kitchen together, furnishing it with donations from local neighbours. We received an incredible amount of crockery, plates, and cups, as well as discarded appliances and sinks. Getting to know our neighbours and equipping the kitchen was also the spirit of the first feast, when the warm October weather still allowed us to sit outside and cook over an open fire. The following nine gatherings took place in the newly established interior setting: the kitchen and a large table covered with its characteristic red tablecloth. Each evening focused on a different theme, addressing current issues of wider social concern, explored with invited guests through lectures, discussions, and panel debates. Each topic was also approached through site-specific artistic interventions or performances.