History

Sound Kitchen grew from the vision of sound designer Steve Brown (1960–2013), who led the OISTAT Sound Working Group from 2007. Its first outing was at the 2011 Prague Quadrennial, at Café NONA in the National Theatre, under the theme Sound Art, or Conceptual Sound Design?

After Steve's death in 2013, Sound Kitchen paused, and other sound presentations took its place in the World Stage Design 2013 programme. In 2015, Karen Lauke curated it for the Prague Quadrennial and shaped it into something close to today's format: sound designers from around the world gathering to share and present their work.

Later editions were curated by Bradlee Ward (World Stage Design 2017), Roger Alsop (Prague Quadrennial 2019) and Bradlee Ward again (World Stage Design 2022, delayed a year by Covid-19).

Peter Rice and Robin Whittaker

Since the Prague Quadrennial 2023, Sound Kitchen has been co-curated and co-organised by sound designer Peter Rice and spatial sound technologist Robin Whittaker.

Robin has supported Sound Kitchen since its early days, and his TiMax SoundHub spatial sound system has been at the heart of the event's sound system. Peter first took part at World Stage Design 2022 as a contributing artist and educator, under his sound artist name thesoundcollective.

In 2023 they ran Sound Kitchen as a partner event to the Prague Quadrennial at Divadlo Inspirace, HAMU (the Prague Music Academy).

Sharjah 2025

At World Stage Design 2025 in Sharjah, Sound Kitchen was part of the official programme for the first time. Over four days, 22 sound artists from 12 nations shared sonic art, sound design for performance and research.

The edition also introduced the SK Collaboration Slots, which pair artists who haven't worked together before to create new work that premieres at the event. These slots extended the Sound Kitchen community into the Arab world and strengthened links between European, Antipodean and American artists.

Next: Prague 2027

Sound Kitchen returns to the Prague Quadrennial from 8 to 12 June 2027, as part of the official PQ programme in PQ Studio. See the About page for details.