T100 Making 2018 & 2019

T100 Recipes 2018

T100 Recipes launched ‘Welcome to the Kitchen Table’, a two-year project exploring the stories of diverse communities that have settled in Thurrock and along the Thames Estuary. In July 2018, Kinetika set off on another series of walks around Thurrock, Southend, Gravesend and Dartford with the theme of food, and invited everyone to join them!

Building on three previous years of successful walking projects, T100 Recipes took for its theme the diverse, historic and colourful foods that communities have brought to the Lower Thames Estuary when they have settled here.

Following routes that took in the area’s diverse and historic food cultures, the specially curated set of walks were led by volunteers well-versed in the geography and history of the routes. They offered opportunities to discover and share foods from the rich diversity of peoples from around the world, as well as local delicacies. The events allowed participants to explore where our food and traditions come from!

Creative workshops in Southend and Tilbury generated imagery, stories and recipes reflecting participants’ memories of and stories attached to their favourite recipes. These collected stories and recipes were then screen-printed onto material and then stitched together to make tablecloths!

T100 Recipes culminated in a spectacular finale. 2018 was the 70th anniversary of the Empire Windrush arriving in the Port of Tilbury and to mark the occasion, we worked with Gateway Academy students o design a 4m high Tilbury Docker puppet. He led us on the last walk, accompanied by costumed dancers from Elite and BB’s Dance Academy, down to the International Cruise Terminal for a final celebration.

One of the last walks in Tilbury coincided with Chilean arts organisation Teatro Container cooking a community feast in La Cocina Publica, the Public Kitchen: a mobile kitchen built inside a shipping container – it was an eventful day, and over 200 of people came to watch, share a meal, listen to each others stories and take part.

T100 Welcome to the Kitchen Table

In 2019 we continued our journey, walking over 195 miles in a continuous 15-day pilgrimage connecting diverse communities along the River Thames, sharing food and recipes, finding what different groups have in common and sharing an understanding of different cultures. Each walk underpinned our mission to meet new people and see the places that we already know from a fresh perspective, starting a conversation that might change the way we think about the future.

Each day of the journey included sharing food and the stories around it. From apples and water to vegetable gardens, tearooms and picnics through to goulash, pastries, paella and BBQ food, we explored Thurrock through the different food of our diverse community. On top of this, there were plenty of opportunities for creative writing and drawing which encouraged an exchange of stories between participants from different backgrounds.

There were various exciting workshops developed and presented with Create98 to get involved with in T100 Welcome to the Kitchen Table including journal-making workshops, art journaling and photography workshops, screen-printing workshops, sketchbook making and writing workshops.