Tranhuman Cookings: Acous-coustic Sessions
Blanca, Valle del Ricote, Murcia
This laboratory is part of Cocinas Transhumantes, a project by hablarenarte · 2026
What is this lab like?
Murcian and Moroccan cuisines have much more in common than meets the eye, including ingredients, cooking methods, place names, and hydraulic systems that are rooted in a shared Andalusian past. The bajocas, the beans, the michirones and the apricots not only have Arabic etymology, but also similar preparion methods.
Drawing on this shared heritage, Acous-coustic Sessions is proposing a series of events where food, oral tradition and music come together to foster a sense of community among the various populations of Blanca, municipality located in the Region of Murcia. The project uses modular spaces to host events that explore culinary processes and sound, creating shared spaces through workshops on agroecology, building a wood oven and making collaborative tablecloths.
The laboratory has collected a recipe book shared among Blanca's communities, featuring made with locally produced foods, as well as an oral glossary of terms related to recipes, place names and orchard knowledge. Additionally, the laboratory explores techniques associated with cultivation, such as the use of natural dyes made from pomegranates, onions or lemons, and henna for drawing.
Programme of meetings
Session · 18 and 25 April 6 June · Age of Oxox (White-Eyes)
Nat Llorente (Ecologists in Action) · Substrates
A workshop on agroecology and nutrition taking place in Oxox Era, a orchard between Blanca and Ojos, a BIC space that has maintained its irrigation structure with few changes for over a millennium, having inherited systems from the Amazigh society. The workshop connects the historical Andalusian legacy with the cultural background of the participating Moroccan community.
Session · 26 and 27 June
The House of Engarces, Blanca
La Cuarta Piel · From Floor to Floor
Material experimentation through the collection and study of mud from the Segura River. The compacted and dried sediments, once fragmented, form a stratigraphy that connects territories linked via runoff. The project culminates in the construction of a wood-fired oven inside La Casa de los Engarces, a type of oven closely associated with to the history of the southern peninsular orchards since the Andalusian period.
Acous-coustic Two plots
The core of the laboratory is structured into two blocks or plots. Each block consists of three work sessions - preparation of tablecloths with drawings and interventions, a shared kitchen and sound work and oral history - and a public presentation.
First plot Al' Akhawat: the Hispanomarroqui through food
Working sessions · 30 June 1 and 2 July · In Blanca
Session Public Presentation · 3 July · In Blanca
Second plot AsoKultura: invent a monument for an agrarian environment
Working sessions · Thursday 9 and 16 July · In Blanca
Session Public presentation · 24 July · In Blanca
Who’s running the lab?
Local agent: La Casa de los Engarces
La Casa de los Engarces is an initiative that combining textile practice, audiovisual production and agroecology in Blanca. The name pays homage to Ibn Arabi and his work The Engarces of Wisdom, with the concept of engarceserving as a metaphor for the interconnection between knowledge and communities. They use of the orchard as a metaphor and as a medium to document agricultural practices, connect with the Esparto textile tradition and produce shared stories about the local landscape using audiovisual techniques.
Artists: Zineb Achoubie and Lorenzo Sandoval
Zineb Achoubie (Casablanca) is a visual artist and weaver trained in Fine Arts and at the Royal Academy of Traditional Arts of Morocco. Since 2018 he has been researching Amazigh culture in collaboration with cooperatives and Atlas weavers, reflecting on the textile as a writing system and place of social interconnectedness. He has exhibited at SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin), IVAM (Valencia), Bienal de Bamako, Bienal de Dakar and Villa Romana (Florence).
Lorenzo Sandoval (Madrid, 1980) works as an artist, filmmaker and curator. Generation Award and V Scholarship DKV-Álvarez Margaride. Nominated for the Berlin Art Prize 2018. He has represented Finland at the Venice Biennale 2019 with the Miracle Workers Collective. He has exhibited at IVAM, Centro Párraga, SAVVY and at the Dak'art 2018 Biennale. Together they investigate the relationships between acoustics, household and circular economy.
