The Shape of a Pocket Encounter: Intervention: Our Memories of Home in this Pot with hn. lyonga
Date: Saturday, November 9th
Time: 14:00 – 16:00
RSVP at the.shape.of.a.pocket.24@
“I share stories because the women in my family have instilled in me a deep appreciation for the power of food and the many memories it holds.” – hn. Lyonga
Our Memories of Home in this Pot is the performative part of the multi-media installation “Our Memories of Her in this Chest”. This sauce-making intervention seeks to activate the memories stored in our chests. It explores the profound and complex connections that exist within communities that make time for neighbouring and sharing. Furthermore, it seeks to acknowledge both the individual and collective responsibilities we have in the process of decolonizing nature, food, and ourselves while commemorating those whose hands cultivate sustenance for our bodies.
Set up three stones in a small triangular pattern. Throw some freshly cut wood and dried corn leaves into the mix. Light it up, then throw in some Coco-yams. Roast them until their rough skin turns smooth, brown, and rootless. Cut them into pieces and eat them with warm palm oil, a pinch of salt, and dried Mololo or salted Goat meat.
Cooking is strategic much like telling a story. Setting up a scene and or developing a story’s plot is like cooking. Granny, Sedina Nako Née Joké always told me to set up the stones, she said to place wood in a triangular manner between the stones and then light them up. Wood needs to be dry and light to catch fire. Wood must catch fire for food to be cooked. But wood had to be provided for in the same way an audience avails itself to a story. The vessel that carries a story is a pot that carries food. One beguiles the other. Hands create while mouths tell. People who gather around pots at night under the lights of a hovering half-moon, scooping soup, or porridge, exchanging gazes and pleasantries want to be inspired. They want to see and believe and food is an entryway into places beyond our imaginations. Cooking and eating together becomes a space/place of encounter, for knowledge exchange, for interrogation, and learning, and a way to nurture each other.
Questions:
When we contemplate the time spent in kitchens and the act of cooking, we evoke and revitalize certain memories.
With this encounter, I am posing the following questions; how can we securely access the memories of taste? Who is the beneficiary, and who is not? In what manner do locations for food preparation also serve as arenas for the generation of knowledge? Lastly, who do we encounter in these spaces, and how do they show themselves? Do they engage in dialogue?
This workshop is open to 10-15 people. In case you are interested in coming to sit, make sauces, and share a story or two, I welcome you to please send an email to the.shape.of.a.pocket.24@
BIO
hn. lyonga is a Black, Queer, interdisciplinary artist, poet and curator.
I live and work in Berlin. I have lived in other places – and they are still present in my body, my writings, and in my life in the diaspora. I have not come or arrived here on my own. I have arrived on the shoulders of others. My work focuses on writing, storytelling as a vital way of neighbouring, ways of being and existing in space, and migrational inquiries pertinent to historically colonized and marginalized communities. hn. lyonga is currently the co-coordinator of BARAZANI.berlin – Forum Kolonialismus und Widerstand, and a member of the Field Narratives Collective, working on ideas of rural biographies, transgenerational and cross-continental storytelling.” hn .lyonga’s most current co-curation titled “Wor(l)ding Dreamers” was open at the Galerie im Turm, Berlin.