Planetary Protocols: Daniel Fernández Pascual och Alon Schwabe (Cooking Sections)

Planetary Protocols is a new, cross-disciplinary series of talks that brings together international thinkers and practitioners to present their work and perspectives on architecture, design, identity, and statehood. 

In the fourth talk of the series, Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe – co-founders of London-based Cooking Sections – will present “The Empire Remains Shop” – a public installation that speculates on the possibility and implications of selling back the remains of the British Empire in London today.

The Empire Remains Shop
Empire Shops were first developed in London in the 1920s to teach the British how to consume foodstuffs from the colonies and overseas territories. Although none of the stores ever opened, they intended to make foods such as sultanas from Australia, oranges from Palestine, cloves from Zanzibar, and rum from Jamaica available and familiar in the British Isles. The Empire Remains Shop, a public installation that opened in 2016, speculates on the possibility and implications of selling back the remains of the British Empire in London today. The Empire Remains Shop works as a platform to investigate and explore postcolonial spatial implications behind the ‘exotic’ and the ‘tropical’, conflict geologies, the financialisation of ecosystems, ‘unnatural’ behaviours, the ecological perception of ‘invasive’ and ‘native’ species, the architecture of retiring to former colonies, or the construction of the offshore and Special Economic Zones.

Open talk followed by a response by Lisa Enzenhofer, architect guest lecturer at KTH School of Architecture. In English.

Curated by James Taylor-Foster
Produced by Elisabet Schön
Graphics by Daly & Lyon
Photo by Ryan Lowry

In collaboration with KTH.

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Other talks of the series
3 April Anna Puigjaner →
10 April Kim Cook  →
17 April Durga Chew-Bose  →
4 May Beatriz Colomina →