Cooking Sections in Conversation with Axelle Dechelette

Axelle Dechelette, a dual degree student in the MARCH and MSCCCP programs, speaks with Daniel Fernández Pascual & Alon Schwabe of Cooking Sections, a duo of spatial practitioners based in London. Cooking Sections are the designers behind Offsetted, the exhibition currently on view in the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery at GSAPP. The exhibition features an immersive installation of matter collected from New York City trees — including bark, branches, trunks, leaves, and clippings — and assembles a constellation of narratives about the political and economic interests that have both protected and displaced the city’s trees under the pressures of urbanization. “We are trying to challenge the vision that you need to assign a monetary value to nature in order to protect it, which some decades ago, was kind of a first step towards changing the perception of the environment among decision makers. But today, we believe that we can take a step forward and start thinking of trees, not as service providers, but just as trees.” – Daniel Fernández Pascual