Kitchen tools offer a support structure that generates social, environmental and spatial situations, due to the gestures they involve and relations they create. Here, the question of the tool is reduced to its most archaic form, the hand, and by extension the body. In that sense, the proposal is not to invent a new tool, but rather to focus on the tactility of food making and sharing, in its most simple, intimate and domestic form.

The conversation between Iwama, Lacoudre and Sineau unfolded in their separate kitchens, in front of screens, in three different cities. The idea had been to prepare a shared meal, around a large sofra, as a way to celebrate the hand as a tool. But suddenly, they were cut off from one another, prohibited from moving, touching or sharing. What should have been a public gathering and performance moved to the intimate sphere of their respective apartments. The very absence of that dinner revealed that everyday cooking gestures are shared across borders, beyond the confines of our kitchens.

Asako Iwama is an artist and cook, who lives and works in Tokyo and Berlin. Her practice has developed around the idea of the ontology of eating. Referring to the social aspects of eating as a metaphor of our relation to nature, she seeks to transform the perception of nourishment, both aesthetically and epistemologically within her work. From 2005–14, Iwama worked at Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin. She is the founder of the collective group pop-up café. and participates at Jan Van Eyck Academy in Maastricht (2019–20).

Iris Lacoudre is an architect based in Paris, researching through drawings, models, exhibitions, interiors and buildings. After graduating from the School of Architecture of Paris-Est, she worked in several architecture practices, at Atelier Bow Wow (Tokyo), Arrhov Frick (Stockholm), Bruther (Paris) before focussing on her own practice. She was a researcher at the Bauhaus Laboratory (2014), and at the Institute for Provocation in Beijing (2017). She is currently teaching at the School of Architecture of Paris-Est.

Camille Sineau is an architect and anthropologist based in Turin. After graduating from the school of Architecture of Paris-Est, he worked for Adam Khan Architects in London, where he became an associate. He worked for Go Hasegawa in Tokyo (2010) and Jean-Christophe Quinton in Paris (2008). Sineau recently concluded a Master by Research at the University of Aberdeen in Social Anthropology, led by Tim Ingold (2016–18). He is exploring other ways of practising architecture with anthropology, focusing on dwelling and inhabitation practices. He is currently a teaching assistant at EPFL Lausanne, along with Assemble studio. 

Iwama, Lacoudre and Sineau gather ideas and archival material around friendship and they practice collectively in various forms.