Decolonial Kitchen: The Story of Somafruit

Location: Museum am Rothenbaum Kulturen und Künste der Welt (MARKK), Hamburg, Germany

Date: July 11 & August 8, 2024

Decolonial Kitchen is an immersive lecture performance with a culinary intervention that engages audience in the story of a man named Narad who travelled to Europe from Mughal India in 17th century. He was an elusive explorer, an itinerant artist, an alchemist, a naturalist and a polymath.Like all those European explorers and adventurers who travelled to the East in the Age of Discovery, Narad travelled to the West to propagate his golden fruits that give immortality.

Inspired from a series of imitation fruits from India in the South Asia collection at Museum am Rothenbaum Kulturen und Künste der Welt (MARKK) in Hamburg, this immersive experience aims to shine light on stories of the people and cultures to whom these museum artifacts once belonged. It is designed using visual elements that immerse audience in an alternative historical story-world that revolves around Narad’s journey to Europe using a real historical map made in 1647 by an obscure Persian cartographer named Sadiq Isfahani. Specially curated culinary preparations are arranged in one bite portions on this map to consume during the lecture performance.

“I imagine Decolonial Kitchen as a place where forgotten stories are cooked and served”