MÅLTIDET at Vesterkærets Skole

What happens when a visual artist, working in collaboration with a public institution, rethinks the daily meal in a specific context, pondering its role, its potential, and what it might become?

In September 2025, artist Johanne A. Stoffersen (b. 1994) was invited by Vesterkærets School to work side by side with the school’s senior pupils. They took turns in the kitchen, preparing lunch for one another. The meal became an experiment: what happens when an artist’s creative gaze is brought into everyday life, turning lunch into something that brings together pupils across age, background, circumstances and experience?

Just as in the art world, a packed lunch can reflect and carry social connotations and biases – which is precisely what this project wants to take on, creating a shared meal where everyone is invited. ‘We want to promote changes that reach beyond art’s own framework. Art can be a tool for strengthening our sense of community and wellbeing – and the meal is a natural setting for that,’ say Kunsthal Spritten’s co-directors Bibi Henriksen Saugman and Signe Cecilie Jochumsen.

MÅLTIDET is a culinary experience in itself while also acting as an arena for dialogue and reflection around wellbeing, nutrition and social relationships. The open question posed by Kunsthal Spritten is this: what happens when a visual artist becomes part of everyday life in our institutions, taking lunch as the focal point of social interaction? The initiative draws on Kunsthal Spritten’s rich history and cultural heritage as a former spirits factory – set in the very place that produced the Rød Aalborg aquavit, a staple of Danish lunch tables for years. For Kunsthal Spritten, using art as a tool for creating positive change in society feels both natural and timely.

MÅLTIDET is realised in collaboration with public institutions in Aalborg Municipality. The project is presented to care home residents in February and to pupils from Vesterkærets School in September.

The project was launched back in February when Johanne A. Stoffersen (b. 1994) joined the kitchen at Madservice Aalborg, which supplies meals to thirty-eight care homes and 1,700 residents across the municipality. In this first part of MÅLTIDET, Kunsthal Spritten tested the format on lunches provided within an elderly care setting. Throughout February, Stoffersen worked closely with kitchen staff to rethink and develop classic Danish dishes, taking them in an inspiring, greener direction. Those experiences now form the foundation for the work with the school’s lunch.

This time, the project is undertaken with senior pupils from Vesterkærets School in Aalborg, who will prepare and serve food for one another in collaboration with the artist throughout September. The aim is to rebuild a vibrant culture around cooking and community, and to re-establish the school lunch as an everyday situation of real significance.

MÅLTIDET is realised in collaboration with Bikubenfonden (the Bikuben Foundation), with the ambition of creating new kinds of encounters with contemporary art.