This makes me feel Connected
Conflict Kitchen
Conflict Kitchen is a restaurant that serves cuisine from countries with which the United States is in conflict. Each Conflict Kitchen iteration is augmented by events, performances, publications, and discussions that seek to expand the engagement the public has with the culture, politics, and issues at stake within the focus region. The restaurant rotates identities […]
Conflict Kitchen is a restaurant that serves cuisine from countries with which the United States is in conflict. Each Conflict Kitchen iteration is augmented by events, performances, publications, and discussions that seek to expand the engagement the public has with the culture, politics, and issues at stake within the focus region. The restaurant rotates identities in relation to current geopolitical events.
Operating seven days a week in the middle of the city, Conflict Kitchen uses the social relations of food and economic exchange to engage the general public in discussions about countries, cultures, and people that they might know little about outside of the polarizing rhetoric of governmental politics and the narrow lens of media headlines. In addition, the restaurant creates a constantly changing site for ethnic diversity in the post-industrial city of Pittsburgh, as it has presented the only Iranian, Afghan, Venezuelan, North Korean, Haudenosaunne and Palestinian restaurants the city has ever seen.
Contributor notes
What is surprising, refreshing, most interesting?
I came across their work not too long ago and I truly love what they're doing. It's inspiring. One of the easiest ways for people to connect and understand each other is through food.
Key Insights? What can we learn from this?
Conflict Kitchen offers Americans an opportunity to learn about international politics, culture, and food outside of the lens of Western media. On their food wrappers, they provide insights from the natives of those countries living in the U.S. and in their respective countries.