Project: Balkanalia

Artist: Anna Novakov

Venue: Zentrum fur Kunst und Urbanismus, Berlin

Concept: Balkanalia is a performance-installation rooted in the belief that food is one of the oldest technologies of community. Drawing from the culinary traditions of the Balkans, the project transforms the communal table into a site of sensory exchange, storytelling, and collective labor. Every stage—researching recipes, sourcing ingredients, cooking, plating, serving, eating, conversing, and finally cleaning up—becomes an integral part of the artwork. These gestures, often overlooked in daily life, reveal a choreography of interdependence: hands passing bowls, voices sharing memories, bodies gathering around warmth and scent. In Balkanalia, the meal is both medium and metaphor, inviting participants to experience how nourishment, care, and shared responsibility can hold a community together, even if only for the duration of a single, generous feast.