Head of the Felix kitchen Leon Aarts (right) and artist, Mark Wallinger (left) with his mural entitled ‘First person, plural’
(Picture: Lucy Young)Food charity the Felix Project celebrated one year of its “inspirational” east London kitchen by unveiling a mural by Turner Prize-winning artist Mark Wallinger.
The kitchen in Poplar has cooked almost 900,000 meals from surplus food in 12 months but its boss Leon Aarts said there was still “huge demand”.
He added: “The kitchen is so much more than doing 3,500 meals a day. It is a community and it’s a spirit and we realise it’s about the power of sharing a meal. It’s very satisfying and humbling work.”
The kitchen was built partly thanks to £1 million from the Evening Standard’s Dispossessed Fund and donations from readers as part of this paper’s Food For London Now campaign.
It is part of the Felix Project which aims to combat food waste and hunger and was set up by former Evening Standard chairman Justin Byam Shaw in memory of his late son Felix.
Wallinger, whose work First Person, Plural has pride of place in the kitchen’s meeting room, said the mural was an expression of the kitchen’s ethos. He said the rows of the letter “i” in different colours and typefaces represented how the individual became part of something bigger at the charity.
He said: “It does such a fundamental thing and meets such a fundamental need unfortunately in this day and age in the sixth richest country in the world and it does it with such fantastic spirit.
“When I was shown around here the first time I didn’t need much more inspiration than that.”
The project delivers food to more than 1,000 recipients across the capital but has about 750 charities on its waiting list. It is also hoping to start a partnership with Clink restaurants which train prisoners to work in kitchens as well as provide meals for pensioners in Lambeth. It brings in hundreds of volunteers.
One of them, Amy Kyson, 62, a retired nurse from Romford, said: “I really enjoy it. Everyone is like a big family here and we have a lot of laughs.”
Leon said the cost of living crisis meant the charity needed more support and it is trying to raise more than £30,000 — enough to pay for more than 135,000 meals — by filling 50 places for runners in this years Big Half marathon.
