In 2021 the Loma Bonita community presented an initial plan sketch for a Kitchen Lab space at a communally owned plot. This Kitchen is the result of 3 years of collective processes that have been slowly building a common vision materialising on this piece of land. To strengthen knowledge and collective practices for food production in the region, the realisation of the Kitchen space will be crucial.

The Cocina CoLaboratorio project was born (under the name Keepers) in 2018 as a proposal to create bridges between groups working and living in the area around the kitchen table to connect, experiment and implement alternative solutions to farming that can conciliate land restauration and food production. Since then, scientists from the Autonomous University of Mexico and ECOSUR, creatives and chefs have been cooking and exchanging knowledge with members of the Loma Bonita community. In this process we have co-developed a garden of edible plants, a living seed archive, designed new recipes with local ingredients and materialised a temporary space for workshops, cooking and residencies.

 The next step is to start a process together with the community, architects and our transdisciplinary team to collectively design and build a Kitchen Lab that can host future encounters. A community kitchen, a laboratory for local food products and innovations that will be central to an experimental transdisciplinary learning lab for agroforestry and collective knowledge production.

For over 30 years researchers have been studying the agricultural frontier of the Lacandona Rainforest in Mexico. This hyper-biodiverse Rainforest landscape has suffered a radical transformation in the past decades due to farming. Nowadays farmers that live and feed from its ground are becoming extremely vulnerable facing climate disasters, soil depletion and loss of biodiversity.

 The Kitchen Lab is intended to hold a knowledge exchange program designed to develop products, techniques and community organisation schemes that can promote, recognise and strengthen existing local capacities and social capital that are key towards the future resilience of farmers and their families. This program will invite residents to develop projects in collaboration with community members. They could be for example: an expert in food conserves, a craft designer working with local materials, an agroecologist working expert in pest control, a business consultant for cooperatives, or an artist printing recipe books. In the future we expect this space to grow into a community restaurant, comunications space, workshop for circular DIT technologies and a food forests. 

Loma Bonita is in an area with a significant lack of educational, health and service infrastructure. This space can be of great value in bridging skills, connections, and resources that can sustain a future-proof economy and health. We have drafted a common vision together with the community where this space could have a lasting impact on the livelihood of future generations in the area and inspire communities beyond.

Loma Bonita has hosted generations of researchers from all over the world. In a pilot project in 2018, a group of creatives and chefs visited Loma Bonita with a mobile kitchen inviting communities and researchers to cook and share stories, ideas, and aspirations for the future of the area. During a final workshop we created a common vision and a long term plan together. The local authorities of Loma Bonita expressed their interest by offering their communal plot.

 The core team of Cocina Colaboratorio is conformed by Lucía (biologist), Felipe (biologist and producer), Elizabeth (radiomaker sociologist), Adriana (cultural anthropologist), coordinated by Mariana (designer with focus in community placemaking) and Diego (agroecologist with focus in community-led agriculture). We work on site for periods of 2 to 3 months per year alongside students, invited experts (scientists, artists, chefs, practitioners) and a core community group. Nelva, Freddy, Oralia, Checo, Bima, Paco, Jaime and Miguel are community experts in local building techniques, materials, gardening, cooking, and education, who have shared their biocultural, constructive and organisational knowledge to slowly shape what the plot is today. 

This year we’ve teamed up with Comunal:Taller de Arquitectura to mediate the co-design and building of this space. They will bring to the table expertise in facilitating decision making, collective design processes, and the social production of space focusing on local construction techniques.

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