Finally, the participants of the project have arrived. In the empty old school on the Kanaalstraat in Eindhoven artists from all over the world came together to have dinner and to celebrate the beginning of the exciting and challenging Eindhoven Caucus as part of the project Be[com]ing Dutch. Although most of them were a little nervous, soon everyone felt more comfortable when Charles Esche and Annie Fletcher welcomed them.

,,We’re very excited and nervous about this project we’re entering in now,’’ Charles Esche said. ,,In this project, we want to find out how we live together, how do we learn together, how can we turn the mass of ignorance into knowledge?” Annie Fletcher adds that they have high hopes of this turning into something unique, something we can all benefit from. ,,We have an empty room available to us in the museum. If we want, we can fill them with material we make together, through working and thinking together. We don’t have to fill these rooms if we don’t want to. There are multiple opportunities to determine what can happen.”

All the participants and not to mention the many volunteers, guests and people from behind the scenes, were able to enjoy an unusual dinner. Created by Harold Schouten the theme of the dinner was ‘Mix x Tijd’. This basically meant that the basis of the dinner was pancakes, but with a twist! Dishes from many different cultures were prepared and beautifully presented at the table. The guests could pick a specific pancake (there were pancakes from Holland, India and Marocco).

Walking past the buffet, people could pick whatever they wanted and make a very special and unique pancake. There were for instance rice dishes prepared, hot dishes, cold dishes, herbals, cheese and many more things to put on the pancake. The idea behind this was that people from different cultures came together and started sharing their own cultural recipes. The dinner was very well received. People enjoyed eating things they never knew could fit together.

Later in the evening everyone was chatting away with people they had never met before and they could look back on a pleasant evening and an exciting few weeks ahead.