Spring ’26 News
pigs > waves > seeds > buffalo
Dear friends, colleagues, and kin,
We are welcoming the break from the cold days to celebrate a new book, to follow the movements of buffalo as they get prepared for the 2026 Manda Festivali, to join farmers as they plant millions of drought resistant and heat tolerant seeds and to share our upcoming exhibition on pigs and how they shape the interiors of your home. A spring of openings, festivals, declarations and gatherings. Join us wherever you are!
the House that Pigs built
Museum of Art in Public Spaces, Køge, Denmark
Public Opening: 19 March, 4:30pm
Conversation with Hannah Landecker
Exhibition open until 2 August 2026
In Denmark, pigs outnumber people by almost five to one. the House that Pigs built reflects on how substances extracted from the connective tissue and bones of animal bodies (particularly pigs) have, for over a century, been an almost invisible part of everyday life. Gelatin and glycerin, fatty acids and calcium derived from slaughterhouse waste, purified and processed, enable materials to solidify or flow, to emulsify or to shine. Visitors enter a “3D rendering” of an apartment in which each component, including a door, a window, a chair, a drying rack, and a toilet, literally speaks about its own making. The thick consistency of toothpaste, the smoothness of water-repellent surfaces, and numerous related chemical properties are entangled with pig by-products and industrial farming. The house whispers a fable of extraction and shared material cycles: the pig is in the building; the building is in the pig.
Embedded within the installation is a civic digital tool that provides public access to information on the expansion of pig megafarms in Denmark and enables participation in environmental decision-making. Marking the 25th anniversary of the Aarhus Convention on the right to access environmental information, the exhibition connects knowledge with political action, while imagining futures beyond human exceptionalism.
the House that Pigs built is a work by Cooking Sections (2026), developed in collaboration with Hannah Landecker. Studio team: Max Cooper-Clark, Rosa Whiteley. Performed by: London Contemporary Voices (Connor Going, ILĀ, Rocco, Mia Shelbourne). Sound and Music: Richy Carey. Metal fabrication: Mitre & Mondays. Recording: Urchin Studios. Data science and AI: Aleph². Online platform: An Endless Supply. With the support of CIFAR Future Flourishing Programme and the British Academy. Curated by Irene Campolmi.
London Book Launch — Waves Lost at Sea
Reference Point, London
30 March 2026, 7pm
Join us to celebrate the London launch of Waves Lost at Sea, bringing together Duval Timothy, Nerea Calvillo, and Theodossis Issaias alongside a live performance by ILĀ. The programme reflects on acts of reading and translation as ways of sensing and making sense of a world in transformation.
The book itself traces Cooking Sections’ evolving practice across visual arts, architecture, and ecology. Since 2013, they have been investigating anthropogenic space, industrialised food systems, and human-made climates: from artificially coloured farmed salmon and drained buffalo wetlands to ocean-filtering oysters and Sicilian tomatoes outlawed under EU regulations. Their research-based practice examines the legal, environmental, and metabolic struggles behind what ends up on our plates, while also opening pathways for different ecological futures. The publication brings together newly commissioned essays by Nerea Calvillo, Sria Chatterjee, Ros Gray, Yayo Herrero, Theodossis Issaias, Mari Margil, and Bárbara Rodríguez Muñoz, alongside an extensive series of images with detailed captions and reflective annotations. The book moves across legal fictions, queer ecologies, disappearing landscapes, multispecies entanglements, and speculative tastes. Through these layered investigations, Waves Lost at Sea invites readers to rethink food cultures and agricultural imaginaries, decentering humans at both microscopic and planetary scales.
Co-published by Fundación Botín and Spector Books on the occasion of the namesake exhibition at Centro Botín, Santander (October 2025 – February 2026).
Manda Festivali
5th Water Buffalo Festival
Northern Istanbul Wetlands
16 May 2026
This year’s edition of Manda Festivali gathers herders, chefs, musicians, schoolchildren, and neighbours to celebrate water buffalo cultures and the wetlands they sustain on Istanbul’s urban edge. Taking place during the UN International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, the festival highlights pastoral knowledge as a living infrastructure amid pressures of displacement and encroachment from megainfrastructure. Alongside herder-led walks, music performances, games, and buffalo-milk dessert tastings, we will introduce a new Declaration on Postindustrial Pastoralism, advocating recognition of grazing ecologies emerging within formerly mined and recently financialised wetlands.
Come wallow with us.
Much love,
Cooking Sections