Tofutopia 豆腐托邦 is a video installation by HE Shen 何珅, which explores tofu’s contemporary identity as a racialised and queer agent, connected both to its Taoist alchemical heritage and to Caséo-Sojaïne, a Parisian tofu factory influential in spreading anarchist ideas to China. A series of tofu workshops acts as a performative counterpart to Tofutopia, positioning the collective act of tofu-making as a practice filled with subversive resilience, pleasure, and mutual care. This collective action reclaims the tofu-making space as a site of decolonial queer resistance.

Tofu’s versatile taste and malleable texture evoke a queer materiality that willingly accepts new characteristics imparted by sauces, spices, heat, force, and water. Inspired by this transformative nature, the workshop intentionally sets no fixed narrative beyond the communal process of making tofu. It evolves uniquely with each session, adapting to the spaces it occupies and the dynamic interactions of its collaborators and participants.

This recipe was born from a tofu workshop in summer 2025, as a collaborative encounter between Vanny, Daodao, and Shen. Our joint effort is rooted in intimate friendship and the growing momentum of an emerging Asian community in Switzerland. Simultaneously, the ongoing genocide in Gaza perpetrated by the Israeli settler-colonial regime—which has increasingly weaponised hunger—makes it especially urgent to revisit Caséo-Sojaïne’s vision of disseminating tofu-making skills as a means of nourishing communities suffering from malnutrition, hunger, and poverty.

Tofu’s revolutionary potential profoundly intersects with the Palestinian struggle and broader resistance movements opposing colonial violence in various communities and territories. The devastation in Gaza thus significantly informs Tofutopia, reinforcing its mission to foster decolonial solidarity across diverse communities and territories. Together, we will engage these interconnected threads, making tofu collectively, cultivating solidarity, and opening possibilities for creative work.

Soft Power: Making Tofu by Hand by HE Shen 何珅

Soak the soy beans for 8 - 12 hours. Discard the water and pick out any impurities. In a large pot, combine the beans with fresh water. The ratio should be: dry beans to water 1:10. Grind the beans with a mixer or blender for at least 3 minutes. Discard any foam that may appear during blending. Apply the draining cloth on top of a colander. Filter the mixture, and make sure there are no particles in the filtered liquid. Heat the filtered blend. Keep stirring while heating up, and discard the excessive foam. Once the liquid is boiling, turn the heat down and keep cooking for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and cool it briefly. Prepare the electrolyte agent. Ratio reference for 100g dried beans: 10ml vinegar, 3g food grade gypsum, 2g food grade bittern, 2.5g gluconolactone (GDL). Add the electrolyte agent. For silk tofu, a special skill is required: mix the electrolyte with 50ml of warm water and place it in a thermally insulated container. Cool the soy milk to 85-90 °C, then pour it into the container with the electrolyte solution from 30 cm above. This allows the kinetic flow of the milk to mix well with the solution without stirring. Keep the container closed and insulated for 25 minutes. If there is no insulated container, use a big pot instead, and put it on very low heat for this step. For silk tofu, the procedure ends here. For pressed tofu, apply a piece of draining cloth to the formwork and then add the mixture. Wrap the mixture with the cloth and top it up with a flat lid. Apply weight to the lid and leave it for at least 1 hour. Overnight would be optimal.

The Stomach Tells the Truth (我是我所食) by Ni Daodao 倪島島

begins with an everyday object that is often overlooked: Chinese‑made bamboo or wood chopsticks, packaged with a clear “recommended use” period of three months. These single‑use utensils come with a predetermined expiration — their death is sanctioned, normalized, and justified. This reveals a consumer logic around materials and time, as well as a disciplinary relationship between the body and nature in risk management. I chose to apply Urushi — traditional Chinese lacquer that requires time, patience, technique, and precise humidity control — coating these chopsticks by hand, layer upon layer, over several months. This labor process is an act of companionship, care, and re‑animation. Linked through heart and hand, the lacquer’s natural anti‑mold properties also reshape the relationship between microbes, objects, and the body, transforming these “expired” disposable items into kin‑like objects that receive care. This artwork explores how food, the body, objects, and ecology interweave in contemporary life. To me, what I eat, how I eat, and the vessels I use to eat are all decisions about identity, environment, and ethics. As The Material Kinship Reader suggests, kinship is no longer confined to human‑to‑human structures but becomes a coexistence among humans, materials, microbes, and labor.”

Belonging, One Plate at a Time by Vanessa Bosch วาเนสซ่า

I don’t eat out or go for Thai food anywhere, I was disappointed too many times before. They never come close to my mom’s . I know how she cooks, She fights with fire. Her kitchen is a battlefield and a dance floor at once. You better step out of her way when she shakes that wok. Her face so grim, so focused, I’ve always wondered why she barely has any wrinkles, even at sixty. Maybe it’s the steam. She must cook from memory, but I know it’s more than that. Her hands are guided by something deeper, an instinct, a hunger to create, to experiment, to stay alive in taste. She bridges lives. The one she was born into in Rayong,

and the one she carved out in Lindau. I used to stare at the strange mix in her restaurant: the heavy Bavarian wooden chairs, dark and carved, planted between delicate Thai silk cushions and gold paper ornaments, lacquered flower vases, sandstone elephants. It didn’t make sense to me as a kid. I wanted coherence, aesthetics.

She wanted home. I observed spirit houses, their gabled roofs and intricate carvings homes for energies, ancestors, the invisible. And maybe that’s what she was doing, too. Making a house for her spirits, for her past and future to co-exist.

A place she could stand in fully. South Germany didn’t give her that. Not at work, not in the streets, not in the way people looked at her food like they owned it. So she built her own resistance. Decorated with dreams and remnants. Refused to assimilate completely, and refused to let go entirely. Her belonging was something she had to cook up herself, over years, like broth. Strong, subtle, impossible to fake. Now I see her still driven. Still tired. Still trying to claim something for herself, not borrowed, not translated, not filtered through someone else’s taste. She longs for more than survival, meaning, a reason to be, not just a function. Her cooking isn’t nostalgia, it’s a future she keeps imagining with every dish. A belonging she insists into existence, one plate at a time.

Sauce for Tofu

Fry the tofu in oil until golden on all sides, then let it drain for a few minutes before slicing. Finely chop garlic and fresh chili. Slice white onions. In a pan, sauté the garlic, chilli, and onions until fragrant. Gently add the tofu slices to the pan. Add oyster sauce, soy sauce, a pinch of sugar, and a little pepper. Add a splash of water to create a light sauce that coats the tofu evenly. Let everything simmer briefly until the tofu absorbs the flavours.

Flavour Companions for Two by HE Shen 何珅, Vanessa Bosch วาเนสซ่า and NI Daodao 倪岛岛

silk tofu 500g pea starch or corn starch 3 tbs chilli oil 3 tbs soy sauce 3 tbs oyster sauce 1 tbs Thai chilli 1-3 pieces Thai basil 1 bundle celery 1 piece spring onion 2 piece garlic, minced or crushed 2 cloves sichuan pepper, ground 1 tbs lime 1 piece pretzel sticks/other crisps 1 package peanuts/ soybeans, deep fried 2 tbs rice (optional) 2 bowls

Mince all the herbs. Cut the lime into wedges. Crush or mince the garlic. Grind the sichuan pepper. Add the starch to a small pot and mix with 400ml of water. Cook the mixture on medium heat while stirring constantly. When it starts to boil, lower the heat and cook for another minute. Add the silk tofu to the mixture. Let the tofu warm up on residual heat. Serve the tofu in a bowl, a tofu temple, or on top of a bowl of rice. Add the soy sauce, oyster sauce and the chili oil. Add all the herbs and spices. Add the pretzel sticks and peanuts. Add a splash of lime juice.