Open Kitchen’s outdoor installation ‘Fridge Cultures’ has joined ‘Power of the Margins’, Sculpture Milwaukee’s 2026 exhibition. The work is installed at 315 E Wisconsin Avenue.
Composed in spring 2026, ‘Fridge Cultures’ takes the form of a refrigerator containing active fermented cultures and references a social culture of artists working with food and landways. Its contents include a sourdough mother tended by collective members, a yogurt culture from an artist residency in Istanbul, a double-cream Colby developed by a local artist and creamery, and ‘XCellarator Pickles’, an experimental pickling cooperative preserving the seasonal diversity of Milwaukee gardens.
The 65-by-52-inch work is made from white polycarbonate, digital vinyl, matte laminate graphic and LED lighting. It is co-presented with the Haggerty Museum of Art, the Lynden Sculpture Garden, and the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships for Individual Artists.
Open Kitchen was founded in Milwaukee in 2016 by Rudy Medina and Alyx Christensen, in partnership with Alan Medina. Through events, installations, residencies and seasonal research projects, the collective uses food as a lens on ecology, identity, land and community.
