Keukens
- Words
- Caroline Kurze
I´ve always liked insights into private domestics from a different perspective that reveal some more or maybe just other information than we are used to. Normally if you enter a person´s kitchen there is not much to see. Maybe you can make a guess what kind of person is living here, from how he or she decorated the place but that´s about it.
+ Read MoreThat´s why I like Erik Klein Wolterink´s project ‘Keukens’ even more giving us a sneak peek into the cupboards, drawers, fridges and ovens.
Each piece he photographed separately and reconstructed the images again to one unit. We zoom in on what the cupboards have collected over months or even decades. From instant mashed potatoes to truffle oil, from Maggi cubes to Ethiopian spice mixes. A well-stocked kitchen refers to Turkish cookery with goat’s cheese and halal sausage. But the mix for homemade apple pie is a witness of an open attitude towards other customs. A mother shows her African roots with a plastic Voltic Sparkling Water bottle filled with palm oil. Female students undermine our prejudices with a spotless kitchen. In the kitchen of a family with growing children, a packet of Korma curry of Pakistani descent and cardamom pods try to square themselves with Dutch kitchen habits. The Dutch sandwich culture leaves its traces in the sandwich wrappers in the drawer, the sandwiches in the fridge and the Nutella chocolate paste in the sink cupboard next to the abrasive agent. Thus the kitchen becomes a metaphor of a complex, multicultural reality.
All images © Erik Klein Wolterink
