Recipes for healthy and climate-friendly food

In the project, Nikhil Vettukattil focuses on the Nordic diet, which, like the better-known Mediterranean diet, has been shown by research to be among the healthiest we can eat. The Nordic diet could also be socioeconomically and climatically sustainable.

“I think it’s interesting to start looking at the question of what a sustainable diet would be in relation to climate change – like, what does locally grown mean? Is organic food something for people with a lot of money, or is it something everyone can have access to? What is it that makes it difficult for people to change the way they eat?” says Nikhil Vettukattil.

Part of the GRASS graduate school

As artist in residence at Campus Gotland in Visby from February to May, he will now take a closer look at such questions. This residency is taking place through the GRASS Fellow Programme, which is organised by the Uppsala University Graduate School in Sustainability Studies (GRASS) and the Baltic Art Center (BAC).

Nikhil Vettukattil launched his project two years ago on the Norwegian archipelago Svalbard. Interest in it grew quickly, and he has continued the project’s work in Finland, Greenland and Scotland. In his exploration, he moves in the grey area between research and art.

“There are elements of academic research, such as reading peer-reviewed journals and such, but the artistic studies are a bit like anthropological research, such as conducting interviews, meeting ordinary people and researchers,” he says.

Building a recipe bank

A key feature of the project is the cantina.earth website that he is developing. It will give the public access to different recipes.

“I thought that if I’m creating artwork, sculptures and so on and working in all these places, it’s not very sustainable to ship these heavy objects around, and it takes a lot of resources to display them. I was more interested in creating something that was light and accessible. That’s why I started looking at text-based work, because people can read them online and you can send instructions instead of creating them somewhere else,” explains Nikhil Vettukattil.

The recipes are grouped into the three themes of disaster, survival and resistance. And they do more than discuss how to cook. They also provide other guidance.

“There is a recipe for how to delete your social media, with instructions. It tells you how to back up all your data and how to delete it from Facebook and Instagram. Many people want to delete their social media, but don’t know how to do it in the best way for their data,” says Nikhil Vettukattil.

Food recipes should be easy to use, no matter how many people they are being prepared for. It should also be easy to find sustainable ingredients.

Changes according to the season

“Although it only looks like text on the website, each ingredient has metadata attached to it with the food’s weight, price by weight, the season when the ingredient is available, and so on. The idea is that if you look at the website in March, it will show you completely different recipes than in December because it only shows what is in season,” says Nikhil Vettukattil.

On 12 June, the event “What will we be eating in ten years?” will be held at Konst och form in Visby, with speeches, hot food and a screening in both Swedish and English.

Åsa Malmberg