Arcade’s programme is not a departure, but a deepening and extension. Food sits at the centre of our vision, and so we place a kitchen at the heart of the gallery. This gesture turns the ‘white cube’ into a space of renewal and gathering, while remaining highly practical. Supper clubs and public events sit alongside exhibitions, each supporting the other.
The kitchen is both a connective space and an invitation , the social glue of our community. It acts as a bridge between artistic research and everyday life, where cooking, making, and conversation fold naturally into the gallery’s programme. Drawing from contemporary dialogues around art, food, and ecology, the kitchen becomes a framework for collaboration, sustainability, and care. It reflects ongoing research in the field, from initiatives such as Goldsmiths’ Kitchen Research Unit to MACBA’s The Kitchen, and extends those ideas into lived, local practice.
At the same time, we continue to navigate what a commercial gallery can be today, reimagined as a social enterprise that puts people before profit. This new model borrows from the public sector (itself increasingly reliant on private investment) and from the market (sustained by public funding), proposing a more holistic and interdependent ecology. Becoming a CIC represents a development of that vision and a strategic response to the shifting social and political landscape, a way of working that resists binaries and evolves through practice. It is, ultimately, an experiment in how care, commerce, and culture might coexist, and how their balance will only truly reveal itself over time.
Recent discourse, including projects such as Dani Burrows and Aaron Cezar’s Politics of Food, highlights how the arts can address food, climate, and ecology; health and policy; science and biodiversity; and the ethics of food production, distribution, and consumption.
We work closely with our resident chef, Marco Donadon, whose practice bridges hospitality and creative experiment. Marco leads workshops, supper clubs, and ingredient studies that invite artists, patrons, neighbours, and local groups to cook, taste, and host together. His approach reminds us that food, like art, is a process of exchange, care, and continual learning.
In this sense, the programme itself becomes a device for bringing people together. It invites participation and conversation, using food as a medium to connect the gallery with its surrounding community. Meals, residencies, and shared events bring the space to life, allowing the kitchen to function as both studio and gathering place.
We have joined forces with artist Kathrin Böhm and community drinks maker Shaun Tuck from Company Drinks, whose mission resonates with our values of community engagement and artistic experimentation. As part of this collaboration, our kitchen hosts a display fridge stocked with Company Drinks’ bottled favourites; an intersection of art and food where these beautifully crafted drinks invite reflection on nourishment, value, and shared labour.
We also continue to animate the kitchen through collaborations that celebrate material, process, and care. Max Jones’ Bleu de Termignon video marks one such collaboration; a meditation on craft and time that connects the kitchen to histories of making, trade, and taste.
Looking ahead, we are working with Culture Access to co-develop Cooking with Support, a new programme exploring food, care, and disability justice through practical workshops and inclusive media. In collaboration with Let’s Make Something Nice, the project culminates in a community-focused YouTube channel offering accessible, hands-on cooking guidance. Together, we are building a platform that foregrounds accessibility, co-creation, and community empowerment.
No single organisation, whether public, private or third sector, holds the powers, remit, or insight to change the local food system alone. By forming an inclusive, cross-sector food partnership, public agencies, community organisations, businesses, and academics can collaborate to create lasting change by agreeing on priorities and action for the local area.