January 10 & 17. Between The Beginning of Sense and The Chaos of Feeling: A Multispecies Banquet with Luiza Prado de O. Martins

January 10 & January 17, 19:00
Between The Beginning of Sense and The Chaos of Feeling:
A Multispecies Banquet with Luiza Prado de O. Martins
Space is limited, RSVP requested

The foundations of coloniality and capitalism have always hinged on the construction of scarcity: in order for wealth to exist, so too must poverty. In order for some to be satisfied, others must be eaten. In order for some to live, some must die. In the context of the current climate emergency, scarcity has become a defining, tangible circumstance in the lives of those on the margins of a world scarred by colonial wounds; those who bear the weight of the West’s quest for endless economic growth. In parallel to this production of scarcity, colonial-capitalist structures also produce a perception of excess, directed precisely at those whose bodies and lives are framed as exploitable resources in the quest for the accumulation of wealth. Those for whom food, water, land, shelter, care, affection, and dignity will not be afforded; those whose fertilities must, ostensibly, be strictly managed, for the benefit of the entire world’s population. Thus, the uncomfortable reality of the West’s perpetual hunger for disposable goods, exploitable bodies, and natural resources — all key factors in the ongoing crisis — remains un- or under-examined.

In two instalments of this ongoing series, artist Luiza Prado invites guests — particularly those belonging to marginalized communities — to partake in meals consisting traditional Brazilian dishes prepared with plant-based ingredients that lead a double life: they are known food sources, whilst also being used in herbal preparations meant to induce fertility and lust. Approaching the preparation and sharing of a meal as a form of collective performance, this work means to critically interrogate the rhetoric associating environmental degradation with overpopulation in the context of the current climate emergency; and to dare to imagine the sharing of abundance as a form of radical, decolonizing care and future-making.

This series is presented by Luiza Pado de O. Martins as part of her residency at TIER, In Weaving Shared Soil. It is also part of a research she has been developing within the framework of the Vilém Flusser Residency for Artistic Research, a cooperation between the Vilém Flusser Archive at Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) and transmediale, festival for art and digital culture Berlin.

Space is limited to 20 participants per session.
Please RSVP with your name and preferred date (January 10th or 17th) to: theinstituteforendoticresearch@gmail.com

Photos by Benjamin Busch