15. 9. – 10. 11.2024
»Food, Art & Activism: Nourishing Ourselves and Each Other«
with Minia Biabiany, CATPC – Cercle d'art des travailleurs de plantation congolaise, Ramata Coulibaly, Binta Diaw, Luiza Prado de O. Martins, Tracey Rose & guests: Luvinsky Atche, Darlène Kassem, Nkhensani Mkhari, Ozoz Sokoh & Magda Tedla
M.Bassy e.V. is conceiving the interdisciplinary exhibition project »Food, Art & Activism: Nourishing Ourselves and Each Other« from September until November 2024, which invites works & voices of selected artists, activists, authors & collectives from the African continent and the diaspora to Hamburg to engage aesthetically, critical-investigatively, anthropologically and socio-politically with the themes of food, nutrition, ecology, agriculture and collective resource use from a decolonial, global-southern perspective. The project comprises a two-month group exhibition presenting sculptural, installative and video works by Minia Biabiany, CATPC – Cercle d'Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise, Ramata Coulibaly, Binta Diaw, Luiza Prado de O. Martins & Tracey Rose, three artist & research residencies and accompanying events consisting of artist talks, lectures, food performances and a film screening – furthermore including activists, cultural and culinary actors as Luvinsky Atche, Darlène Kassem, Nkhensani Mkhari, Ozoz Sokoh & Magda Tedla – that seek to approach the topics of food, art and activism holistically and in collaboration with the Hamburg audience.
The exhibition project asks how Black & Afrodiasporic lived experiences can be made visible in the consumption and production of the food stream. How can we sharpen our view for the roots of patriarchal capitalism and monopolistic systems of agriculture? And beyond that, what forms of identity formation and connectedness can we identify in the food culture of Black and Afro-diasporic communities? We invite artistic & cultural actors who consider food and art as a means of resistance and collective empowerment and address these themes through visual, performative, discursive, participatory, and collaborative interventions. Reclaiming food and strategies of »feeding oneself« is crucial for marginalized communities to free themselves from historical mechanisms of exploitation.
Locating this discourse in Hamburg is decisive against the backdrop that the port city historically acted as a »gateway to the colonial world« and the profit of local shipping companies and merchant families was closely intertwined with colonial resource theft and the enslavement of people to cheap labor. Colonial products such as sugar, coffee and bananas are still consumed today, without the historical and trans-Atlantic entanglements often being considered.
LOCATION: M.Bassy e.V., Schlüterstraße 80, 20146 Hamburg
DURATION: Sep. 15 – Nov. 10, 2024, Opening hours during the exhibition: Thu – Sun, 2 – 6 pm
OPENING: Sep. 14, 7 PM, with a Performance by Ramata Coulibaly. Artist Talk with Luiza Prado und Ramata Coulibaly. Moderation by Jumoke Olusanmi.
ARTIST IN RESIDENCY: Ramata Coulibaly, Nkhensani Mkhari & Ozoz Sokoh
28. Sept. »From Seed…to Sheltering Tree«
Talk & Screening mit Darlène Kassem
im Gespräch mit Jumoke Olusanmi, Culinary Performance by Luvinsky Atche (the event is booked out)
Oct 19, 7 pm: »(Imigodla Yethu) Ritual Traditions of Communal Manifestation« - Lecture by Nkhensani Mkhari & »Língua (white)« - Performance by Luiza Prado de O. Martins, with accompanying Artists' Talk & Culinary Performance by Magda Tedla (the event is booked out)
»(Imigodla Yethu) Ritual Traditions of Communal Manifestation« - Lecture
The performance lecture »(Imigodla Yethu) Ritual Traditions of Communal Manifestation« by Nkhensani Mkhari at M.Bassy delves into the interstitial space between food and ritual within indigenous Bantu and Nguni cultures of Southern Africa. It is proposed that food, when viewed through the lens of shamanic practices and initiations, operates as a potent cultural agent, capable of subversion, creation, and social critique. Central to this inquiry is the concept of ubulawu, a ritual preparation often associated with healing and divination. It contradicts the assumed binary between food and medicine in Western notions of nutrition and health. ubulawu and similar rituals form a matrix that promotes communication, fraternity, and integration, ultimately serving as tools for indigenous self-dignity and identity creation. This performative lecture invites us to consider the ways in which ritualized consumption can become a form of resistance, a means of preserving cultural heritage, and a catalyst for social change.
Nkhensani Mkhari
Nkhensani Mkhari (b. 1994 in Johannesburg, lives and work in Johannesburg, South Africa) is a transdisciplinary curator, writer and artist with an artistic practice that operates at the intersection of aesthetic sociology, technology, performance, and spirituality. They exhibited and performed in the exhibition »Beyond AI:Resistance & Coexistence« at M.Bassy in spring 2024. Now, during the artist's time in Hamburg, Mkhari will be working on a project titled »Digital Apothecary: Indawo Yezindlela Zokupheka«. An online archive of recipes passed down through generations of their family, who have long employed plant medicine and food as communal healing agents and repositories for ancestral spirits. This digital apothecary aims to preserve and share these invaluable traditions, offering a glimpse into the rich pastiche of the family's history. By making these recipes accessible to a wider audience, Mkhari hopes to contribute to the ongoing exploration of indigenous healing practices and the revitalization of ancestral knowledge and peripheral epistemes.
»Língua (white)« - Performance
The performance »Língua (white)« by Luiza Prado de O. Martins – related to the artist's visual and sound installation on display in the exhibition inquiring into variations on the colour white and its symbolisms of purity and belonging in Western, patriarchal, and cis-heterosexist conceptions – engages with personal histories of migration, queerness, illness, and kinship through a recipe for a coconut cake. The narrative framework is set by the artist's text »White« which is part of an ongoing research into colours, pigments, and colonial circulation routes.
Luiza Prado de O. Martins
Luiza Prado de O. Martins (b. 1985 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, lives and works in Berlin) is an artist, writer, and scholar. Her work moves between installation and herbalist practices, using performance and ritual as a way of invitation and activation for audiences. Her practice explores relations and knowledge between plants, political infrastructures, and technology, and questions what structures and processes are needed for collective concerns of environmental care and reproductive justice.
Magda Tedla
Magda Tedla (b. 1981 in Hamburg, lives and works in Hamburg) is a nutritionist scientist and has been working as an entrepreneur in nutrition prevention since 2016. She studied nutrition sciences and founded Magda's Food Programme and Magda's Natures Treasures to pass on her passion for cooking and sustainable living and culinary approaches from the African continent – in the form of cooking courses, seminars, and the distribution of food supplements – to children, young people, and adults.
NEXT UPCOMING VENUES:
Nov 2, 7 pm: Ozoz Sokoh – »What Are You Hungry For, and Will It Nourish You? On Food, Knowledge, and Identity«
As part of our interdisciplinary exhibition project »Food, Art & Activism: Nourishing Ourselves & Each Other«(still running until Nov 10), we are hosting the food historian Ozoz Sokoh as Cultural-Agent-in-Residence at M.Bassy, who will nourish us with a talk, film screening & a shared culinary performance on Nov 2 at 7 pm titled »What Are You Hungry For, and Will It Nourish You? On Food, Knowledge, and Identity«. Central to her work is connectedness through food – from food sovereignty, cultural identity, reclamation of food systems and importantly, the joy of eating.
Ozoz Sokoh (*1976 in Warri, Nigeria, lives and works in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada) is a food explorer, educator, budding curator, and Traveler By Plate, for whom "Food Is More Than Eating". In 2009, she began journaling about food on her blog, Kitchen Butterfly. In 2013, she created the #NewNigerianKitchen, developing her philosophy and practice with Nigerian food. Her research and documentation explore the roots of Nigerian and West African cuisine, the impact of West African intellectual contributions to global development from the American South, through the Caribbean to Europe and Latin America, and the connection to the Afro-diaspora. Her ongoing exploration, "Coast to Coast: From West Africa to the World" traces the histories and edible trails of West Africa and its diaspora through ingredients and "commodities" and is documented on Feast Afrique. It includes an open-access digital library of 250+ cuisine and cookbooks from the 1800s to date – a hall of fame – data-driven work on the role of food media in marginalizing West African voices, and a series of short films available for screening.
Ozoz has spoken at TEDx and at conferences hosted by the Culinary Institute of America. Her work has been featured in Smithsonian Magazine, Gastro Obscura, CNN African Voices, Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown, and more. She is a professor of Food and Tourism studies at Centennial College, Toronto. Canada. She makes her home with her three teenage children in Mississauga, Ontario-Canada, on Land of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.
Entrance: free & including dinner. Limited seat available. (the event is booked out)
Please reserve via: reservation@m-bassy.org