Kelptropolis is an experimental dining experience that merges gastronomy, storytelling, and immersive performance into a culinary exploration of Sakhalin Island's ocean ecosystems.

The menu traces the rugged coastline of Sakhalin in Russia's Far East - a land shaped by the collision of Russian, Japanese, Korean, and indigenous cultures at the edge of a generous sea. Drawing from these culinary traditions, the dinner journeys through the island's coastal and aquatic habitats, unfolding as an edible narrative. From preserved fish cured by time, sun, and salt, to foraging from tide pools, to grazing the seaweed meadows, to fishing the cold depths of the Sea of Okhotsk. Each course is accompanied by a meditative soundscape of field recordings the chef has collected over years of ocean exploration, culminating in a bioluminescent performance that brings the sea's hidden light to the table.

An Evening on Sakhalin Island

March 21 | 7:00 PM - 9:30 PM

6:45 - 7:00 PM - Arrival
Guests arrive and mingle

7:00 PM - Welcome
Guests are seated
A brief welcome and introduction to Sakhalin Island where indigenous, Russian, Japanese, and Korean cultures have converged.

7:15 PM - The Shoreline
First Course: Weathering Shore
An introduction to the culinary traditions of the Ainu, Nivkh, and Orok peoples.

7:30 PM - Tide Pools
Second Course: Foraging the tide pools
Guests explore the bounty left behind by receding tides and forage the tide pools.

8:00 PM -Underwater Gardens
Third Course: Seaweed Meadow
A journey through underwater forests where kelp sways in cold currents.

8:15 PM - Guided Sonic Meditation
Listening of immersive soundscape of ocean field recordings of human and whale songs preparing us for the deeper depths.

8:25 PM - Deep Waters
Fourth Course: Okhotsk currents
The ocean gifts at its most generous.

8:45 PM - Exploring Currents
Fifth Course: Rip current
Surfing the ocean’s highways

9:00 PM - Bioluminescence Performance
A music and dance performance of bioluminescent dinoflagellates algae illuminate the table.

9:10 PM - Resurfacing
Fifth Course: Amber shore
We return to Sakhalin's amber rich shores, completing the journey from land to sea and back again.

9:30 PM - Closing
The evening concludes. Guests are invited to linger.

Mischa Kuma is a multidisciplinary designer whose work explores reciprocal relationships between nature and technology to create new, meaningful experiences. Through immersive installations, research-driven design, speculative systems, and performance, she creates worlds that invite people to encounter living systems not as resources, but as collaborators. Her practice centers on building environments where digital systems, materials, organisms, and landscapes are in active dialogue, shaping human perception, emotion, and action. Working across experiential design and performative gatherings, she treats technology as a medium through which ecological relationships can be sensed, negotiated, and reimagined. Recently, she has begun working with food and communal dining as a performative medium, exploring shared meals as sites of ecological storytelling, cultural inquiry, and interspecies imagination.

Kyle Barnes is an artist-researcher trying to live well on a damaged planet. He uses computing and community as creative mediums, seeding ritual gatherings which facilitate practices including ecological mourning, radical attention, and more-than-human collaboration. in past lives he has been a climate scientist, democracy reform expert, startup founder, professional figure skater, and teacher. mostly, though, he just wants to hang out.

We get that things come up, but we rely on headcounts make our programs viable. If you request a refund...

More than 4 weeks before the program begins → 100% refund More than 2 weeks before the program begins → 50% refund Fewer than 2 weeks before the program begins → No refund

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