Fire Soup at Walking Festival of Sound [September, 2019]

[Fire Soup at Walking Festival of Sound 2019. Photo: Jacek Smolicki] 

During the Walking Festival of Sound in Stockholm 2019 participants in the festival cooked ‘fire soup’ on a mobile wood fired kitchen and talked about humanities long relationship to fire together with artist and researcher Erik Sjödin. Sounds from the fire and the cooking was amplified and recorded by artist Jacek Smolicki.

A fire soup is hot and spicy soup cooked over fire and consisting of primarily red, orange and yellow ingredients. In Swedish “a soup” is a metaphor for “a mess”, thus a fire soup can be interpreted as a metaphor for the fire mess humans appear to have gotten themselves into.

The mobile wood fired kitchen used for the cooking is one of several kitchens built by Sjödin to facilitate various explorations of human relationships to fire.

NOTE: It is generally not permitted to make fires in densely populated areas or during hot and dry summer months. Before making a fire: 1. Check with the fire department if it is allowed to make fire. 2. Don’t make fires if it’s dry and windy. Fire can spread rapidly. 3. Always have fire extinguishing equipment close by. 4. Always be at least two persons, in case something should happen. 5. Make sure you can call for help if there is an accident.