Piedra piedra piedra

Art and Cookery Gathering – 3rd. Edition

First Phase

June 2, 3 and 4, 2022

PIEDRAPIEDRAPIEDRA: Art and Cookery Gathering is in its third edition with international guests and a new location. This year we developed all the activities of the gathering in the Plaza de Mercado Doce de Octubre (Bogotá). We had the participation of FIBRA from Peru (Gabriela Flores, Lucia Monge, Gianine Tabja), in addition to a diverse group of artists and researchers from Colombia, such as Biblioteca de Raíces (Carlos Alfonso and Cristina Consuegra), Material de Estudio (Génesis Rivera, Camila Pacheco, Ana María Roa Limongi, Laura Ceballos), Tatiana Rais (Director Espacio ODEÓN) and Ernesto Restrepo Morillo & EL PAPAS Productions.

Look the video of the PPP : Art and Cookery Gathering | Ed. 3

INMERSION 

PIEDRAPIEDRAPIEDRA: Art and Cookery Gathering is in its third edition Plaza Distrital de Mercado Doce de Octubre

As an essential part of the piedrapiedrapiedra, Immersion is a disruptive event that challenges the traditional notions around commercial spaces and the dynamics of food establishments, as well as art spaces and their specific agendas. For this reason we decided to carry out the three days of the gathering in the Plaza Distrital de Mercado del Doce de Octubre. The challenge of accommodating a cultural agenda with the dynamics and schedules of the market, contrasted with an immediate involvement of the participating artists and the public with the sounds, products and people who daily inhabit this space. On the other hand, from the organization of the event we seek that most of the products necessary for its execution come from the vendors and businesses of the market. Thus, there was a mutual learning that was materialized in the actions and lectures.

TALKS

DESBOSQUE: DESENTERRANDO SEÑALES FIBRA: Gabriela Flores, Lucía Monge y Gianine Tabja

During the lecture, FIBRA presented the research that led to their work that bears the same name. The lecture discussed the worrying deforestation figures in the Uyacali region, which guards one of the largest forests in Peru, as a result of illegal logging and the use of land for wax palm monocultures. In reference to the networks that make up systems such as the Internet and its great similarity with mycorrhizae (complex systems of communication networks that fungi present in forests), Fibra collective proposes a bio-installation composed of a series of co-created sculptures with fungi that transmit recent data of zoning on deforestation in the region.

REDES Y COLABORACIÓN: ESPACIO COMUNAL Tatiana Rais y Juan Fernando López

Conversation between Tatiana Rais, Director of Espacio Odeón, and Juan Fernando López Director of Plural Nodo Cultural. Rais talked about the 10 years that Odeón has been open to the public, emphasizing on the activities, groups and artists who have shaped the new program, Espacio Comunal. This program derives from understanding contemporary artistic practices within care and community. Later, there were a series of questions among the speakers that arose from the experience of managing non-commercial art spaces with objectives that bring them closer to the social realities of their place of influence.

SOBRE LA PAPA EN OTROS MUNDOS Ernesto Restrepo Morillo & EL PAPAS Productions Modera: Andrea Muñoz

The activity consisted of a conversation between Ernesto Restrepo Morillo and Andrea Muñoz, chief curator of Plural Nodo Cultural. During the conversation, they gave a historical tour of Restrepo’s artistic production where the potato is acknowledged as the development axis of social and economic issues. His practice includes ceramics, installation and design, all under a shifting conceptual framework tied to the dynamic processes of the system and how we relate to it.

ACTIONS

HUMBOLDT EN MARTE (Relatos de la papa en otros mundos) Expedición Botánica y Geografías Futuras – Crónicas de una “especie invasora” Ernesto Restrepo Morillo & EL PAPAS Productions

With the precept that the potato conquered the world (an idea that derives from investigations of history, sociology and economics tied to imaginary and speculative postulates resulting from his artistic production) Ernesto Restrepo Morillo proposes an edible installation. The artist, in collaboration with Laura Valenzuela and Erica Toledo, created an interpretation of a hybrid landscape between Mars and Earth, alluding to the future human diaspora to space and to the potato as a travel companion and primary source of food in the adventures. The installation was built throughout the days of the gathering and, on the last day, the public was invited to excavate, destroy and eat the mountains. This gesture was a metaphor for many common economic activities, such as mining and deforestation.

¿DÓNDE DESCANSA LA PAPAYA? FIBRA: Gabriela Flores, LucÍa Monge y Gianine Tabja

It was a participatory action by FIBRA (Peru), where the artists gathered the public around an installation composed of baskets, surfaces and small hammocks connected with sisal and jute ropes. The objective of the action was to establish conversations with the merchants of the market square about the origin of the different products they offer. The public was invited to choose an element and have conversations with the vendors, where they enquired on its origin, way of planting, harvesting, properties and other particularities of the food chosen. Subsequently, each participant socialized with others what they found important to bring to the discussion, capturing it in paintings, small sculptures and drawings, that were later placed on the arranged installation. As a result, the action was complemented with food, fruits, stories and perceptions of both the artists and the public.

COMER RAÍCES POR LOS PIES Biblioteca de Raíces: Carlos Alfonso y Cristina Consuegra

Mixing different types of roots and wild lands, Biblioteca de Raíces carried out an action where poultices (traditional topical treatments that are prepared and used to relieve different ailments and discomforts) were collectively prepared. As an act of inviting collective recognition of ancestral and traditional knowledge, Carlos Alfonso and Cristina Consuegra read passages of writings pertinent to their research while the public crushed earth, mixed it with already prepared roots and formed a dough. Once achieved, the public was invited to put it in their feet. All this happened in the middle of the installation that the group made prior to the action.

MUJER, YUCA Y PALABRA: DOS TERRITORIOS CONECTADOS DE RAÍZ Material de Estudio: Génesis Rivera Ortiz, Camila Pacheco Bejarano, Ana María Roa Limongi y Laura Ceballos Castilla

This action developed around cassava as a food and a binding element. Laura Ceballos proposed an activity around this tuber in collaboration to Génesis Rivera, from Suan Atlántico, and Camila Pacheco, who has dedicated her career to study the Amazon and the deep relationship of this region with cassava. Genesis, who has inherited her grandmother’s knowledge of cooking and cultivation, presented different ways of preparing cassava. She shared with us the value it has in the daily life of her community. On the other hand, Camila tells us about cassava, women and the territory as a result of her close relationship with members of the Murui Muina community. These encounters nurtured the activity to share stories, cosmologies and recipes that range from the Amazon jungle to the Colombian Caribbean.

SYMPOSIUM

REDES: Conversación horizontal entre artistas invitados y el público asistente. Moderan: Juan Fernando López y Nathalie Libos

The symposium began with a compilation of what happened during the three days of the gathering. Later, the concept of tentacular thinking was introduced to the conversation. This concept breaks the notion of human exceptionalism, in order to understand the intertwining and relationships that exist with other organisms. From this, the question was raised: how can I understand myself and the place I occupy by breaking with the idea of ​​the individual?

Later, the concepts of becoming-with and thinking-with were introduced, which helps understand how different beings associate with each other and are capable of intertwining in the semiotic world, starting from the relationality of their encounters. Based on this concept, the question was proposed: how can we think the concept of becoming-with within our relationships, understanding there are multiple interconnected nodes between humans and non-humans?

The symposium ended with the concept of response-ability, which refers to both the responsibility and the ability to respond to others. Thus, the session ended with the question: how can we think about the times of urgency that we are experiencing when we understand each other within a network that intertwines us with other beings?

Photographic and video credits: José Ricardo Contreras González

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Second Phase 

August 27, 2022

PIEDRAPIEDRAPIEDRA: Murals in the Plaza Distrital de Mercado Doce de Octubre (Doce de Octubre Market Square, Bogotá D.C.) by Carlos Alfonso, Ernesto Restrepo Morillo & EL PAPAS Productions.

After the Art and Cookery Gathering, Ed. 3 as a space for dialogue, PLURAL extended an invitation to the artists Carlos Alonso, Ernesto Restrepo Morillo & EL PAPAS Productions, to make two murals in the market square’s installations.

“THE LAND, THE MARKET SQUARE, THE PANTRY”

Carlos Alonso

The land, the square and the pantry is a mural that brings together a series of fruits, vegetables, roots, tubers and herbs, among other plants that are found and exchanged in the market square. As a still life, the triangular composition is an inventory without hierarchy, a compilation of some plant species that are commonly used in the kitchen and in healing. Far from trying to represent all the varieties of food found in the market square, the mural is a celebration of biodiversity, an altar to what earth gives us, a tribute to the hands that work and cultivate it, and an offering of the people who traditionally supply the market places with food. This mural exposes the land and the market square as a pantry or a storage space, where intimate connections of co-dependency are woven between the countryside and the city. Therefore, the market square is shown as a shelter for non-human beings that nourish and sustain life.

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“RELLENO SANITARIO”

Ernesto Restrepo Morillo & EL PAPAS Productions.

Relleno Sanitario from the Bolsa de Valores series is created from a collection of used plastic bags. While being superimposed one onto the other, these bags build an abstract geometric image that is displayed as a still life, landscape and portrait of the market square. This composition comes from the observation of shapes, color combinations and materials commonly found in stores, market squares and other traditional trading spaces. Relleno Sanitario elaborates on the journey of these plastic bags, from factories and commercial establishments to the streets and more domestic backgrounds. Therefore, they ponder on the use of available resources and the final destination of the waste produced by human activity.

You can visit the interventions every day from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and Thursdays up to 2:00 p.m.