Potato Eaters

POTATO EATERS (2024)

by Wapke Feenstra

The Potato Eaters publication, printed in Istanbul, documents the project Potato Growers (2018–2024) and some of the Potato Eaters events (2019 & 2024).

The booklet, designed by Dilara Sezgin, features Wapke Feenstra’s project in collaboration with the Istanbul Biennale and Cappadox 2024. It includes her photographs, potato drawings, project documentation and is accompanied by a text by curator Kevser Güler. The publication also features twenty-eight international potato recipes, all collected during Cappadox 2024 at a communal lunch, where local attendees and VIPs of the festival were invited to write down their favorite potato recipes on the tablecloth.

Bilingual in English and Turkish, the introduction by Kevser Güler traces the history of the project: in 2018 Wapke Feenstra was invited to the 2019 Istanbul Biennale, where she and Kevser co-developed “Potato Growers”. Potatoes have been cultivated extensively in Cappadocia’s volcanic, mineral-rich soil since the 1950s. The project tells stories of industrialization, land-use change, and globalization through the daily lives of potato-growing families in Cappadocia, Turkey. The final event in 2024 was hosted by the Uçhisar Women’s Cooperative. This project reveals how local knowledge and global systems intersect in everyday agricultural practices, emphasizing the enduring bond between people, land, and labor.

Photo: Indra Gleizde