A mother鈥檚 kitchen is full of smells and sights: stocked cupboards, boiling soups, chopped vegetables and a sink full of clattering dishes. It鈥檚 a place of perspiration and inspiration.
Sarah Bonnemaison found herself inspired the moment she walked into her mother鈥檚 new-to-her kitchen in Marseille, France.
鈥淢y mother moved into this famous building in the south of France, a Unit茅 d鈥橦abitation designed after the Second World War,鈥� explains the Dal Architecture professor. 鈥淚t was a big apartment building and the kitchens are very small, but beautifully designed. She walked in and the kitchens were original; even the icebox was still there.
鈥淚鈥檓 an architectural historian so I thought, 鈥業 have to do something with this.鈥�
What Dr. Bonnemaison developed was My Mother鈥檚 Kitchen, an interactive installation currently open to the public in Sexton Campus鈥� Medjuck Building. It traces the emergency of the modernist kitchen through early ergonomics and three different moments in history.
鈥淚t鈥檚 really a story of origins,鈥� she says.
Visitors can explore a multimedia display on the Frankfurt kitchen, a modernist approach popularized in 1920s Germany and so novel at the time that it required an instructional film to support it. (Clips from the film are visible as part of the display) Then, guests can learn about the work of Mary Arnold, who helped the miners of Reserve Mines, Nova Scotia establish a housing co-op and build their own residences in what鈥檚 known as the 鈥淭ompskinsville鈥� project. The exhibit also includes an artistic recreation of Dr. Bonnemaison鈥檚 mother鈥檚 kitchen in Marseille and an interactive digital experience where visitors can experiment with building the kitchen of the future.
The three historical kitchens were all designed by women, for women, but their values evolved over time: from efficiency, to co-operation, to quality of life.
鈥淚鈥檓 amazed by how little we think about kitchen design, in terms of current desires for sustainability and organice produce, but at the same time, see how much money people put into it, says Dr. Bonnemaison. 鈥淚 hope the exhibit gets people thinking about how the kitchen as evolved and where it might go in the future.鈥�
This past weekend, the School of Architecture hosted Mind Into Matter, a symposium based around the exhibition and the work of its various collaborators, including Derek Reilly of the Faculty of Computer Science and faculty at NSCAD and other institutions. It included a dance performance, also called My Mother鈥檚 Kitchen, by Mocean Dance and two video projects curated by Peter Dykhuis, director of the AV俱乐部 Art Gallery.
鈥淲e were all cooking together, so to speak, like a great party where you鈥檙e sharing ideas,鈥� says Dr. Bonnemaison.
My Mother鈥檚 Kitchen runs through Sunday, May 18 in the exhibition hall of Sexton Campus' Medjuck Building (5410 Spring Garden Road). It is open daily from 10-7, except on Sunday where it will be open 10-5.
