Thesprotia, a rural region of northwestern Greece, is home to a variety of outdoor kitchens, constructed and organised mostly by women. These seasonal kitchen huts were traditionally designed to provide shelter for the whole family. Despite the transition in the 1970s from nomadism to more stable communities, with permanent houses and interior kitchens with electric stoves and running water, these exterior spaces continue to exist, although they have evolved and transformed. Separate from the main house, these detached kitchens are personal spaces built around a wood-fire oven, where women have cooked and gathered for decades. Inside these social and culinary laboratories, goat’s cheese is prepared, eggs are stored, vegetables are cooked and recipes are exchanged. They are spaces for storytelling, socialising and at the same time, intimate cooking.
Satellite Kitchens is a research project by TiriLab, investigating the kitchen as a space of assembly, resistance, empowerment and care. It maps the typologies of communal kitchens within more than forty communities in the Thesprotia hinterland, capturing their unique interior and spatial configurations, as well as the recipes and stories of the cross-cultural generations of women who have occupied them. TiriLab’s research tracks how the kitchens have evolved and been used in different communities and settlements, serving as a mediator between cultures and urban and rural contexts.
TiriLab (Greece) is an initiative and an open platform that explores multi-cultural heritage related to local technologies, gastronomy and culture specific to rural communities in northwestern Greece. It is a joint venture of collectives and individuals, practitioners and researchers with a focus on architecture and territory, local ecologies and digital technologies, circular economy and sharing models, initiated by Christina Serifi and Juan Chacón. Its work is focused on building techniques, food research and production as well as territorial research and design through workshops, encounters, research and built prototypes. TiriLab is inspired by and wishes to learn from real-life practices and critical human interventions, leading the way in building alternatives locally and globally. Through the project Mapping the Margins, TiriLab has started documenting and mapping, for the first time, women’s cooperatives, associations and initiatives in Thesprotia province, aiming to create an active knowledge network in order to empower them, give them visibility and foster their multilayered identity. TiriLab is a Future Architecture Platform Fellow and recipient of i-Portunus grant.
Video project: Angel Ballesteros / Muzungu coop
Direction | Research | Production: Christina Serifi/TiriLab, Juan Chacón/TiriLab, Angel Ballesteros/Muzungu coop
Editing | Post-production: Angel Ballesteros/Muzungu coop
Photography: Juan Chacón/TiriLab, Angel Ballesteros/Muzungu coop
Special thanks:
To the women who appeared in the videos: Sevasti Kakou, Dora Tzani, Eleni Deska, Ioanna Serifi, Susana Stannat, Paraskevi Demetriou.
Vaggelis Serifis and Christos Serifis for their stories
The family who hosted us: Dora Tzani, Giorgios Serifis.
