Project Otenga is a multimodal transformative space
using food as a medium. The name Otenga comes from a sweet smelling sour fruit, in-
fact a super food for diabetes widely popular as a vegetable in Assam, India. The
petals of the Otenga flower, instead of shedding, start wrapping around each other
and grow thicker and stronger to become the fruit. Taking this as a metaphor for a two
pronged strategy - to nurture collaborative inclinations as a mindset while
transforming from one form to another as a space. The journey started in 2016 as a
graduation project at NID centring around slow design principles and experimental
collaborative food space inside a house in Gandhinagar. Accessibility to homely
meals cooked with love became the reason for students of various nearby colleges
and singular floating urban population to come together to spend more and more
time knowing each other. Gradually food became much more than just taste unfolding
layers of meaning it encompasses.
Within a year the experimental house cafe became a collaborative project with
Ahmedabad University who wanted to create a multidisciplinary culture by
celebrating cultural diversity. For the new space, it was strategically placed in a
quaint corner inside the university. The key idea was to bring intellectuals, decision
makers, doers, thinkers and the thought leaders from all walks of life, to one platform
where they get to indulge in non compartmentalised interactions while immersing
into a humane and soulful eating experience. The space grew to be an interface and
intersection point of ideas, sustainable practices and multidisciplinary dialogues.
Soon it became a thesis project for 10 more design students from different design
universities working on collective narrative through food and design since 2018.
Constructive dialogues, equanimous practices, celebrating extremes yet neutrality of
opinions soon evolved as intersections between public and academics.
