Pallet, Palate, Palette

Salzburg Global Seminar, with support from the Bush Foundation and the McKnight Foundation, is proud to host at Schloss Leopoldskron artist residencies from selected Fellows from the Cultural Innovators Forum, a program that since 2013 has brought together cultural innovators and creative practitioners from around the world.

Artist and Fellow Lucas Koski spent eight days at Schloss Leopoldskron toward the end of 2022, connecting with people from all over the world.

“Débrouillard is what every plongeur wants to be called. A débrouillard is a man who, even when he is told to do the impossible, will se débrouiller—get it done somehow.”

– George Orwell, excerpt from “Down and Out in Paris and London”

I have always been someone who loves to work.  And my line of work has always been some form of hospitality. The joke about me has always been that I hate being at parties, but I love throwing them. There is something about creating enriched atmospheres for others that makes me feel most connected to humanity. Nothing makes me smile more than catching a guest crack a sincere smile with childlike wonder. My artwork has always followed that line.

Pallet / Palate / Palette was originally created for an artist residency I attended in Greensboro, North Carolina (United States) at Elsewhere, a living museum created among the ruins of an old vacant three story thrift store that seemed to have never sold anything and kept everything, filling every square inch of its space to the rafters. However, after witnessing the effects from a first decade of artists scavenging the goods of the museum and cannibalizing all of the premium items, I determined that I was going to create an experience that was sustainable and non-extractive. This led to the creation of a six-course interactive meal for 16 people, that utilized the living museum as source material, inspiration and backdrop, heightening the experience for attendees.

When I first heard about the chance to apply for an artist residency at Salzburg Global Seminar, I was excited by the opportunity, but also completely lost at what I would propose. In the last decade I have left my former work life world of kitchens, bars, and scrounging together gigs as a working artist. But while I love the chapter I’m living in, the thrill of finding creative solutions to live performance events in the moment of execution is something that I deeply miss.
 

When struggling to understand what I could do as a resident artist at Salzburg Global, I suddenly remembered my own time there as a member of the Cultural Innovators Forum in 2018. I left that week thinking about how much the environment provided a backdrop for conversations of like-minded folks from across the world, and how much the six or so days I spent on the grounds of Schloss Leopoldskron informed the following years of my professional, creative and spiritual life. I was able to grow as a person by embracing vulnerability, following my new passions, amplifying others, and learning to be a better listener. Suddenly it hit me; although my day job is as a real estate developer focused on providing much needed platforms for sustainable artist housing, my heart still belongs in the kitchen and in hospitality, where I would create platforms for shared experiences. How could I take the framework of what I did at Elsewhere and apply it to the terroir of the Schloss? Suddenly the idea of creating a six-course meal for a group of strangers who were about to become potential lifelong friends couldn’t leave my mind. I started thinking about how food speaks through me, and how that energy that I get when creating a shared meal could be transferred as an experience to those sharing the food I would produce.

The logistics of creating a 60-ish person six-course meal with the assistance of a kitchen staff that didn’t speak English was not the same playing field as I am used to. However, I realized that what was magical about the event wasn’t the presentation of the food, but the explanation of why I thought the food I was serving was important to ME. This breakthrough in understanding that I could be present in the event, rather than a servant to it, led me to be vulnerable to my passions, to share my love of food and language.

So what did I do exactly?

On the Tuesday night of that week, I was able to create a six-course meal that focused on six sensory categories as explained through food and narrative storytelling:

• Pungency and its relation to memory (a sipping Pho course)
• Salt and the preservation of food, for humans to debrouiller se brouiller (a Caesar Salad)
• Umami and the place of tables in our lives (Chicken, sauteed greens and potatoes)
• Cranberries and why humans experience sourness (Minnesota-harvested cranberries with rosemary and the Austrian specialty liqueur Zirbenz)
• Coffee and Bitter Chocolate
• Fun and Sweet Poundcakes with a Ganache station

Each course was started by an explanation that I provided about how the flavor profile fits with my life experiences and a narrative about why I was serving the food. For instance, the first course focused on pungency by serving a twist of a classic version of the Vietnamese soup, Pho.  I talked about how pungency, which is a taste sensation delivered directly to the olfactory senses, and how the sense of smell has a direct link to the memory area of your brain. This ties directly into our concept of “soulfood” or a home-cooked meal. This is something that in the Hmong culture, like many others, has travelled across the world but has remained a connection to memories of our past. There is no better feeling in the whole world than sitting down for a meal and being transported to your ancestors’ kitchen table.

At the end of the event, I was happy with what I was able to create with the incredible support of the staff at both Salzburg Global Seminar and Schloss Leopoldskron. The graciousness of the staff of both institutions was remarkable, and I could not have done it without the full support of the entire staff.

As part of the lasting impacts of my own attendance at the Cultural Innovators Forum in 2018, I have grown to learn that therapy and exploring my own interests outside of work can lead to a healthier life. I dug into my issues, my liabilities and my dreams to create a meal that was worthy of sharing with strangers, and I walked the grounds of the Schloss knowing that I helped create a new shared experience for all those who attended.