Slow Cooking with Estabrak / إستبرق – Episode 1

Hello, and welcome to Slow Cooking, a new multimedia podcast about all things food, art-making, social politics and environmentalism.

In this episode, we are cooking with artist Estabrak / إستبرق in Barking, East London. We are very generously welcomed to her studio, where we spend the day preparing the food, slow cooking through the morning, into the late afternoon where we finally eat. 

Hunched over a small central table, and surrounded by Estabrak / إستبرق’s perfectly displayed art works, we talk about art, community, and of course, the food. Not simply the food itself, which is delicious and melts in our mouths, but also the stories around food practices, what it means where it comes from. How it has influenced her work and generations of artists. How it has gathered communities together and been offered by family to friends, by individuals to communities. How it was made yesterday to offer to those enjoying it today. And how we cook today to offer it to those eating it tomorrow. How it has been appropriated, but also how it is a point of connection and resistance and anti-imperialism. 

Generosity is a word too often banged about to describe the approaches to food and art marking processes in this episode and in Estabrak / إستبرق work. The point is connection, mutual support and love for one another.

This conversation with Estabrak / إستبرق is published in three different formats: Video, Audio and Text. All of which provide different pathways into the world of the invited artist, so pick whichever is best or more convenient for you from the options below.

Bom apetite 👩🏼‍🍳

TEXT: Slow Cooking with Estabrak / إستبرق – Interview

VIDEO: Episode 1 – Estabrak / إستبرق

PODCAST:

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Created by Xavier de Sousa
With special participation by Estabrak / إستبرق
Narrative by Xavier de Sousa
Food creation and cooking by Estabrak / إستبرق
Filmed by Richard Warburton
Edited by Richard Warburton
Podcast audio edited by Olive Mondegreen
Filmed at Estabrak / إستبرق studio in London, England
Additional footage provided by the artist
Strategic Producing & Consultancy by The Uncultured

Commissioned by Theatre in the Mill, performingborders and Migrant Actions Productions
Additional funding by Arts Council England

BIOGRAPHIES

Estabrak / إستبرق
A collector of skills, Estabrak’s إستبرق an award winning cross-disciplinary artist, film maker, facilitator, researcher and producer committed to experimentation, inclusivity and a participatory arts practice.

Water, social experiments, anonymity and non-identifiable approaches are tools often explored by the artist to honestly focus on the fragility between beauty and danger. Inviting community engagement to navigate the ever evolving and ephemeral human condition through themes of home, resistance, love, trauma and belonging. 

Continuously evolving and multi-sensory in approach, she layers numerous voices to ask ‘What silenced truths can be revealed here?’ 

Using live techniques, film, projection, sound, performance, paint, installation, (underwater) photography, words and public participation to help highlight and dismantle ignored sociopolitical realities.  

Estabrak / إستبرق has showcased on an international basis also exhibiting at the Royal Academy of Arts & Tate Britain. She’s been supported by agencies including; the Wellcome Trust, Arts Council England, Unlimited, Invisible Dust, Bagri Foundation, Red Bull and the Ocean Global Foundation. Her work has also been presented to the UN. 

Based in London and working internationally, she is originally from Iraq, born into exile in Iran and raised in London, after having come to the UK with her family as a child refugee. 

Xavier de Sousa
Xavier de Sousa (he/they) is an multidisciplinary performance maker and culture worker based between Portugal and the UK. 


They co-curate the digital research and live art commissioning platform performingborders, and Citemor Festival (Portugal). Previously developed and co-curated performance events Queer Migrant Takeover and CUT Festival, as well as New Queers on the Block, Marlborough Productions’ Artist and Community Development programme. Their creative practice also encompasses writing, having published various creative, reflective and research-based texts for publications such as METAL, Penguin, Les Cahiers Luxembourgeois and Centre national de littérature – Lëtzebuerger Literaturarchiv. As a producer, they launched the free-resource space Producer Gathering together with Sally Rose, and worked on the development of the Producer Agreement, the first agreement of its kind in the sector for unions BECTU and ITC. Previously, they produced for independent artists such as Louise Orwin, jamie lewis hadley and Evangelia Kolyra, amongst many others.

Xavier’s performance works include Almost Xav (Southbank Centre), and the trilogy of collaborative shows about belonging and power structures, POST (Ovalhouse, international tour), Pós- (Teatro do Bairro Alto & CITEMOR) and REGNANT (HOME, LiveCollission). They have recently launched a performance-exhibition What Becomes… (METAL, East Street Arts) and a series of multi-media podcasts Slow Cooking. Previously, they collaborated with Tim Etchels, Rosana Cade, The Famous Lauren Barri-Holstein, Needless Alley Collective and presented work with Ovalhouse Theatre, HOME, East Street Arts, Latitude Festival, Tate Modern, METAL Culture, Southbank Centre, The Yard Theatre (UK), Untethered Magic (Kenya), Warehouse9 (DK), CITEMOR Festival, Teatro do Bairro Alto (Portugal), Operastate Festival (Italy), Onassis Culture Centre (Athens), IIT Gujarat (India), Kalamata Dance Festival (Greece), Más Allá Del Muro Festival (Mexico), amongst others.

Xavier is a founder of Migrants in Culture and is a member of BECTU and ITC – Independent Theatre Council.

Website: www.xavierdesousa.co.uk | Twitter: @Xavinisms | Instagram: @Xavinisms

Olive Mondegreen
Olive Mondegreen is an escapee from the music industry. After releasing ten albums in ten years and touring Europe multiple times, she moved into using her music to support choreographers. Her third full length score debuts November 2024 for the show “Juice” in Heilbronn, Germany. Since the pandemic, Olive has also worked as a podcast editor and producer for multiple shows including the weekly anti-hustle careers show “What The Hell Is My Job” and the modern history “My Queer Museum”. She enjoys having no social media.