The Farm Project
By Mike Meiré
Buchhandlung Walter König, €34

German art director Mike Meiré created a walk-in installation based on a traditional farmhouse kitchen. Filled with live animals, plants and a plethora of old and new objects, Meiré evokes the sights and smells of the timeless kitchen and explores it as a space of ritual and transience.

“The Farm Project does not condemn what is called the designer kitchen, on the contrary: The Farm Project would like to prevent it from losing something,” says Meiré.

In the accompanying book, The Farm Project, Meiré charts the construction of the installation in Milan (2006) and again in Cologne (2007). Grainy colour photographs on textured paper give a sense of the project’s rustic feel and beautifully evoke the tactile quality of the installation.

Interspersed between the photographs are essays analysing the installation from the perspective of history, design, architecture and art. These fascinating commentaries place the project in a broader cultural context and explore the kitchen as “a stage on which life is played.”

While you might not want to live in it, The Farm Project is a refreshing attempt to redefine the concept of luxury by bringing the richness and energy of life back into the kitchen.