Canteen from here – Canteen beyond: exhibition at the MKVM

Are you/have you been a menstruator? This question has been connecting us for generations like an accomplice wink. Nearly half of school-aged children have been eating lunch in educational institutions for many decades. A healthy, regular diet is just as important for children’s development as exercise: they perform better in school and are more effective in sports. Eating together also helps to build social relationships, which is also necessary for a successful adult life.

A research group consisting of ethnographers and dieticians used a novel approach to investigate the acceptance of public catering and the role of canteens in the everyday meals of families in several settlements. The topic of public catering was not very often discussed at exhibitions. But the canteen is important. Whatever memory we keep of it, it is part of our childhood and youth, which defines our adult life. Here and now, in addition to recent research results, the past and the imaginable future are also evoked in images, objects, and numbers.