Test Kitchen: What’s Cooking?

Sydney Festival Director Kris Nelson is joined by a trio of Sydney’s most exciting artists Billy Bain, S. Shakthidharan and Vanessa Marian for a generous conversation about the ideas and questions beginning to take shape for new works. Together they will follow the unruly life of artistic ideas, tracing how they gather heat, change flavour and mutate through conversation, collaboration, instinct and circumstance before becoming something that meets an audience.

The conversation unfolds alongside a live cooking demonstration by Bangali home-cook Shishir, whose practice is grounded in a philosophy of balance carried through Tok (tangy), Jhal (hot) and Mishti (sweet). As she cooks, Shishir will share the cultural knowledge held within these flavours and the ways food can carry memory, migration and belonging across generations.

The artists will eat together as the discussion unfolds, allowing artistic ideas and philosophies of cooking and transformation to meet around the kitchen table. Each guest leaves with a sweet treat from Shishir to take away into the Festival frenzy