IHME Helsinki 2024

The artist duo Cooking Sections – Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe – will be making IHME Helsinki Commission 2024. Cooking Sections examine the systems that organise the world through food. They use site-responsive installation, performance and video, to explore the overlapping boundaries between art, architecture, ecology and geopolitics. Established in London in 2013, they use food as a lens and tool to observe landscapes in transformation. They have worked on multiple iterations of the long-term CLIMAVORE project, for which they were nominated for the Turner Prize in 2021.

“Maa” in Finnish = soil, dirt, earth, surface of Earth, ground, country, land
“Leipä” in Finnish = bread

Grain cultivation has a long history in Finland. However, the demand for crops to be used in animal feed has now reduced the amount of land available for the primary ingredients of human plant-based diets, while intensifying the monoculture farming of oats, barley, wheat, and rye. As a consequence, agrochemicals seeping into the ground, and eventually into the Baltic Sea, are exhausting soil and water systems both inland and offshore. Cooking Sections’ site-specific commission for IHME Helsinki 2024 will promote soil and water health through a nationwide challenge: an open call for bakers, home cooks, bakeries, grassroots organisations and restaurants to develop a bread recipe for the future, one that enhances links between soil nourishment and gut health.

Cooking Sections challenges you to create new recipes for CLIMAVORE bread that can be used in large kitchens, homes, restaurants, and bakeries. The challenge is being run in cooperation with farmers and growers’ networks, promoting the cultural heritage of seeds, grain diversity, agroecology, and climate-resilient varieties that require fewer chemicals.

We hope that the breads will be of many kinds and shapes and reflect the diversity of Finland’s population and baking techniques. The challenge aims to raise awareness of the importance of plants in human nutrition for tackling the climate emergency. It supports forms of land use that promote flourishing soil cultures, and which are currently neglected or overlooked by regulatory and subsidy frameworks.

In collaboration with farmers, seed keepers, bakers, and scientists we will be developing the rules of the bread challenge, and promoting the use of multiple grains, plant-based protein sources, and endangered cultivars. The Finland-wide challenge invites bread recipes from different regions and will culminate in a celebration of them in autumn 2024. More information on the rules and schedule of the challenge will be published during the autumn and winter 2023-2024.

IHME Helsinki promotes critical art and the sustainability transformation, and that’s why we invite artists who think without bias about what art and art-making can be in a time of polycrises. Cooking Sections carry out projects whose goal is not only a change in thinking and action, but also a change in the system. The core of their modus operandi is gathering the latest scientific knowledge by meeting researchers and experienced experts. Despite their premises based on researched knowledge, the artworks themselves are approachable, narrative and experiential, and anyone can join in. It is great to be able to cooperate with Cooking Sections and to invite the public living in Finland to join in IHME Helsinki Commission 2024, which involves thinking about and baking the bread of the future,

says IHME Helsinki Executive Director and curator Paula Toppila enthusiastically.

IHME Helsinki’s operations are developed and the selection of artists made by its Advisory Board under the leadership of Paula Toppila. The Advisory Board includes: Ute Meta Bauer, Professor at Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Hanna Guttorm, Senior Researcher of indigenous studies at the University of Helsinki; Antti Majava, artist and researcher at BIOS Research Center; and Jussi Parikka, Professor at Aarhus University.

Farmer Markus Eerola, The Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners
Project Leader Joshua Finch, Novia University of Applied Sciences
Farmer Rauno Haapala, North Ostrobothnia Organic Association
Researcher Emma Hakala, University of Helsinki
Landscape Architect Johanna Himberg, City of Helsinki
Senior Scientist Antti Iho, Natural Resources Institute Finland
Professor of Agroecology Juha Helenius, University of Helsinki
Business Director Anne Immonen, Ylva
Researcher and farmer Juuso Joona
Research Professor Minna Kaljonen, Finnish Environment Institute, SYKE
Postdoctoral researcher Galina Kallio, Ruralia Institute, University of Helsinki
Researcher, limnologist Seppo Knuuttila, Finnish Environment Institute, SYKE
Postdoctoral researcher Kari Koppelmäki, Ruralia Institute, University of Helsinki
Bread culture entrepreneur Eliisa Kuusela, Leipäpaja
Farmer Jukka Lassila, Lassilan farm
Erkki Lehtimäki, Maatiainen ry
Head of Urban Space and Landscape Planning Jussi Luomanen, City of Helsinki
Researcher Ville Lähde, BIOS Research
Researcher, artist Antti Majava, Mustarinda-seura r.y.
Maija Manninen, Maatiainen ry
Senior Lecturer Annika Michelson, Häme University of Applied Sciences
Conservation Officer Elisa Niemi, WWF
Farmer Marja Oesch, Hausjärvi
Vice Dean Janna Pietikäinen, Department of Forest Sciences, Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Sciences, University of Helsinki
Chair Olli Repo, Kaupunkilaisen oma pelto co-operative
Research Professor Marketta Rinne, Natural Resources Institute Finland
Chief Specialist Anna Salminen, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
Researcher, farmer Magnus Selenius, Nyby Gård
Senior Specialist Auli Väänänen, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
Ruby Van Der Wekken, Oma Maa Co-operative
Assistant Rosa Whiteley, Cooking Sections