Tabulatopia collective was created on the occasion of a collaborative project in the festive Van Eyck year in Ghent. The wonderful world of the painting Ghent Altarpiece by the Van Eyck brothers was the inspirational starting point for a working method in which the common fascinations for food, plants, soils and color come together. The connection through experimentation with local ingredients and the preservation of multi-sensorial experiences is key to Tabulatopia’s practice. Tabulatopia collective consists of food designer Céline Pelcé, culinary artist Marente van der Valk and artist collective de Onkruidenier.
Céline Pelcé is a French food artist and designer, using edible materials and collective eating situations to question the relationship we have with our environment, time, and the rituals relating to them.
Her work has been shown in cultural venues across Europe such as the Jan Van Eyck academy (NL), Paris Art Lab (FR), and in the Agora Collective in Berlin. She regularly attends schools, hospitals, and other social projects to propose workshops that aim to cross artistic dimensions of the food with its vital and daily aspect.
In order to explore where our cultural and spiritual relations to food originate from, Céline Pelcé regularly attends art residencies, where she meets with locals to dive into anthropological and historical sources of eating rituals. Traveling particularly to France, Japan, and the United States, in Fall 2021 she will explore the flavor of Umami in Villa Kujoyama, in Kyoto, Japan.
Marente van der Valk is a UK/NL based culinary artist and chef. She graduated in 2012 from a MA Design and Environment at Goldsmiths University of London, and has since then been focusing on projects and events with an emphasis on environmental awareness, community mindedness and the social importance of food and the act of cooking and eating together. Her work is often a multi-sensory experience where a love for bringing people together results in a wealth of flavours and colours and a feel-good atmosphere.
Marente’s professional career started in sustainable Product Design, but a love for food and cooking persuaded her to explore the culinary world. For the past 10 years Marente has worked in London where she has found an inspiring community who aim to connect people through food and the most brilliant ingredients available to a chef. The food Marente creates reflects the eclectic diversity of the sheer range of people she has worked and collaborated with, from The Guardian’s FOOD team to migrant women from culinary social enterprise – Mazi Mas. Currently, Marente coordinates the Food Lab at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht (NL).
Artist collective De Onkruidenier (Rosanne van Wijk, Ronald Boer & Jonmar van Vlijmen) investigates historical, cultural, and potential transformations of nature and the potential of human evolution. They conduct fieldwork – often in collaboration with audiences – collecting plants, the stories and histories associated with them, and speculate on aquatic culture to arrive at new interpretations of the relationship between humans and nature, both above and below sea level. Questioning systems plays an important role in this process. In the development of their work, interactions with audiences and experts such as farmers, residents and scientists create new narratives.
Tabulatopia 