Flora Installation & Foraging Table | 2023

Over April and May 2023, a cohort of selected UAE based artists, chefs and writers participated in Rewilding the Kitchen, an intensive eight-week culinary residency programme with Alserkal Arts Foundation guest resident Nahla Tabbaa, exploring the intersections between art, writing, and food.

The programme culminated in an Open Kitchen – a public showcase of thoughts, writing and recipes in individual performance pieces.

May by Shereen Saif, presented at the Open Kitchen, is an urban foraging project in which she explores the relational ecology of belonging, transposing what foraging means to her in the context of where she lives in the UAE. The project maps the edible and non-edible flora that grows seasonally in the month of May, three blocks in and around Villa 5, Street 61b, Jumeirah 1, where she lives.

Ceding control to the whims of season and chance, Shereen plays the role of a researcher and facilitator in this collaborative project that relies heavily on the skill and generosity of nature, the gardeners, and chefs. An eclectic mix of edible ingredients were sensitively foraged by Shereen and the gardeners and offered to the chefs as a prompt to concoct a vegetarian spread with the constraint that they could only combine it with what could be readily foraged from the Alserkal Arts Foundation pantry.

The result was a flora installation and vegetarian spread of foraged greens and foraged pantry staples, conceived spontaneously by Chef Dalia and Chef Nahla.

Foraging Table Menu

Lentil and moringa dip

Roasted bananas

Roasted bananas with sugar

Sweet potato with marshmallows

Sautéed spinach

Pizza with curry leaf, garlic pickle and moringa pesto

Chia seeds, aloe vera and lemon grass pudding

Moringa risotto

Moringa pesto pasta

Fresh mulberries

Fresh lantana berries

Fresh basil and oregano leaves