Cooking Sections, "Waves Lost at Sea" (Spector Books, 2026)

About this episode

This episode discusses the book 'Waves Lost at Sea' by Cooking Sections, exploring their research on food systems and ecological practices.

Waves Lost at Sea (Spector Books, 2026) traces the evolving practice of Cooking Sections, whose work spans visual arts, architecture, and ecology. Since 2013, they have been investigating anthropogenic infrastructures, industrial food systems, and human-made climates: from artificially colored farmed salmon and drained buffalo wetlands to ocean-filtering oysters and Sicilian tomatoes outlawed under EU regulations. Their research-based practice exposes the legal, environmental, and metabolic struggles behind what ends up on our plates, while simultaneously working to create prospects for the future. This monograph brings together six newly commissioned essays alongside an extensive series of images with detailed captions and reflective annotations. The book traverses legal fictions, queer ecologies, disappearing landscapes, multispecies entanglements, and speculative tastes. Through these layered investigations, Waves Lost at Sea invites readers to rethink food cultures and agricultural imaginaries, decentering humans at both microscopic and planetary scales. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member…

People in this episode

Host: Marshall Poe

Topics covered

• food systems
• ecology
• visual arts
• architecture
• anthropogenic infrastructures
• legal fictions
• queer ecologies

Keywords

• Cooking Sections
• Waves Lost at Sea
• Spector Books
• food cultures
• agricultural imaginaries
• multispecies entanglements
• human-made climates

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Cooking Sections, Spector Books

Books & works: Waves Lost at Sea

Places: EU, Sicilian, buffalo wetlands, ocean-filtering oysters, artificially colored farmed salmon

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