In the final instalment of our exclusive video series with Counterspace founder Sumayya Vally, the South African architect discusses the role of recipes in her Material Histories project for the Istanbul Design Biennial.
The Material Histories project comprised a series of abstract maps that depict the origins of popular dishes.
Material Histories was a project by Sumayya Vally, Sarah de Villiers and students of GSA Johannesburg
The maps were printed on large sheets of paper and installed in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2020, as well as in the Moroccan city of Casablanca and Egypt's capital Cairo.
The project drew on research that Vally conducted in Morocco with the students of the Graduate School of Architecture in Johannesburg, where she teaches a unit. The work of architect Sarah de Villiers, who set up the Johannesburg-based architecture and research studio Counterspace alongside Vally in 2015, also informed the project.
Material Histories aimed to use recipes as a way to open up a discussion about migration, identity, trade and alternative methods of documenting culture.
The project focussed on recipes from Cairo in Egypt and Casablanca in Morocco
"I think recipes are such important archives in telling us where we come from and how we've evolved," Vally said in the interview, which was shot at Dezeen's studio in London.
"For example, one of the recipes is for Kushari, which is a national dish of Egypt but was brought to Egypt by homesick Indian soldiers of the ...