Conference party

1 October 2025 at Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, Cäcilienstraße 29-33, 50676 Cologne

8pm | Entry

8:15pm | Lecture performance and dinner

The conference dinner turns ‘Un/Commoning’ into a culinary manifesto: Chef Njathi Kabui from Kenya/USA and Gifty Owuse from Ama Twi Catering Cologne will create more than just a menu – they will create a space for social change.

“Our stomachs have literally become battlegrounds between modern forces of justice and those of injustice.” Chef Njathi Kabui

The event kicks off with Kabui’s lecture performance ‘Afrofuturistic Cuisine: The past and future of Un/Commoning the granary of Ngai’. The culinary activist and food anthropologist traces surprising connections between Kenya and Germany: German prisoners of war survived during the First World War by using and plundering the grain stores of local communities. The history of destroyed communal resources is translated into a reflection on the colonial interconnections of ‘Un/Commoning’ at the impressive Indonesian rice storehouse in the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum in Cologne.

How are food practices historically and culturally interwoven with power structures? And how can these insights (as a form of sense-making) be tasted (as a form of sensing)? These considerations culminate in the menu, which is prepared during a practical seminar in collaboration between Chef Kabui, Ama Twi Catering Cologne and students from the University of Cologne.

‘Food for thought’ – the communal dinner becomes a manifesto for food literacy and presents Afro-futuristic cuisine as the lived vision of a more just world.

Alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks are offered at cost price. PLEASE BRING CASH!

10pm | Music and dancing

Join our Dancing Anthropology party with local DJane C:Mone a.k.a Tuincy_Bright. Her musical range is rooted in early hip-hop culture with strong connections to jazz & funk, R&B, reggae, house & disco.
5€ ticket IN CASH ONLY at the door or at the conference office they days before.