DIALOGFELD I
DIALOGFELD I
TAINÀ GUEDES (Sense of taste)
Tainá Guedes was born in São Paulo, Brazil in 1978. She grew up in the creative atmosphere around her father’s art studio, surrounded by artists and musicians. Tainá attended the International Chef Program at the school of gastronomy at Senac University, where she graduated in 2006. After moving to Europe in 2006, Tainá got in touch with shojin ryori, the Japanese term for Buddhist vegetarian cooking, much more than a cuisine, a true philosophy of kitchen. Since that time she has constantly been researching vegetarian food and cooking, and on how food is interlaced with our culture. The Chef, artist, food activist, and curator Tainá Guedes, has been working on different projects bringing food, art, and sustainability together with a variety of media, in Germany as well as internationally since 2009. Her first book against food waste, Cooking with Bread (second edition by Oekom Verlag) was published in 2013, her second book "The Kitchen of Mindfulness" (Kunstmann Verlag) in 2016. Founder of Food Art Week and Entretempo Kitchen Gallery. Awarded with the dm-UNESCO Prize for Engagement.
Instagram: @tataisgram @foodartweek @entretempokitchengallery
KLARA RAVAT (Sense of smell)
After studying qualitative trend research in Barcelona Klara Ravat moved to The Netherlands where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (ArtScience at The Royal Academy of Arts). At the same time, she started studying Psychology at the Open University of Catalonia. Klara is the co-founder and the director of the Smell Lab, a platform for olfactory art and inter-disciplinary practices that relate to scent as a medium for expression and communication, in Berlin and in an international context. The Smell Lab main mission is to co-produce, host, educate, innovate and support artistic practices that involve the sense of smell and olfaction.
‣TASTE GALLERY
TAINÁ GUEDES
How to deal with the global loss of seed diversity? How to react to the accompanying disappearance of species and food diversity?
With her work Taste Gallery, Taina Guedes tries to approach these questions. By meeting people, talking to them about their eating habits, interviewing and portraying them, she creates a glocal memory. Seven people, seven entities, seven videos that tell of food diversity. To be viewed online as Taste Gallery, on site as large-format, interactive prints. Part of the Taste Gallery is also the so-called Foodartbank at Instagram, which enables interested people under the hashtags #foodartbank and #letscookthefuturetogether to share their recipes, eating habits and much more with the general public."Food is an universal language that can promote positive change". So let's all start to participate!
‣BITS AND
PIECES
KLARA RAVAT
During the Dialog Felder artist residency Klara Ravat has designed a self-care carpet made of wool. This carpet has an extended symbolism on her own healing practices. During her stay in the Sonnenberg neighborhood in Chemnitz she realizes how the public space is aromatically polished: you can barely smell anything. Why is the city unscented? Is there a relation between the lack of sensorial and sensual inputs of the city, and its past and future?
Klara is presenting a video piece, together with the carpet, where she presents a ritual in order to extend her self-care practices to a wider audience. How could we create practices and scents that would make us feel better in the public space? Can we produce a larger impact in our neighborhoods and communities through scent? In the video she connects and imagines fragrances for a better future.
>> Klara Ravat
>> View of ritual carpet of Klara Ravat in the making, by stich rugs
>> Gurvinder Kaur, India
Photo by Taina Guedes
photo editing: Julia Küttner
>> Zohal, Rezaie, Afghanistan
Photo by Taina Guedes
photo editing: Julia Küttner
‣THREE QUESTIONS TO
TAINÁ GUEDES&
KLARA RAVAT
You have been in Chemnitz (on the road) for a few weeks now:
What are your / your impressions of the city? Have you noticed anything in particular? Why? What differences do you see, for example, compared to your hometown Berlin?
Klara: "Chemnitz, the "land" of empty buildings. I am really impressed by the area and the empty buildings throughout the city. This emptiness gives me the impression of unlimited possibilities - to make and let things happen. It's as if the empty spaces just fuel my daydreams. Inevitably, many questions about space and living come to mind: "What would happen if I moved to Chemnitz? Would I one day be able to afford to buy an entire building in this city? Could I settle in one of these buildings and turn it into a giant smell lab? Would people from Berlin come over if I got a minibus on the weekends?" Fantasising about the possibilities of space.
What fascinates me just as much is the large number of gardens, and how dedicated the people who run the gardens are. In a city that seems quite quiet and tranquil, I find that community building and meeting places are a must to keep them connected."
Tainá: "I am happy to see so many garden initiatives and people who want to build a more sustainable, inclusive and harmonious society. I have met people from different backgrounds living in the city and they are all so strong and inspiring - from the House of Cultures, to the Lila Villa and its international community, to all the Germans and locals. I didn't expect a city with so much space and big avenues. I like that, as a symbolic image. Creation needs space. Change needs space. So when I think about these two things (the space in the city and these people I met), I think that the perhaps prevailing negative image of the city can be changed for the positive.
The work that Klub Solitaer e.V. is doing with Dialogfelder is one of the crucial projects on this path for change. The idea of bringing together six artists from outside the city to work with the local community and encourage thinking about public spaces is a powerful tool to bring people together for positive change.
...
Compared to Berlin, I see commonalities in the garden initiatives and the growing number of young people who are willing to get a "small garden" that brings more sustainable ideas and the goal of making cities greener."
Within the framework of the dialogue fields 2020 Von Sinnen (Of the Senses), you dedicate yourself to the sense of smell and taste: Are there any impressions that you draw from the Sonnenberg in particular? What are they specifically? How are they reflected in your work?
Klara: "At the moment I perceive the smells of the Sonnenberg neighbourhood quite neutral. Because the spaces are so spacious and because of the COVID regulations hardly any crowds are possible at the moment, the smells are dissipating. It makes me wonder if urban planning and the almost non-existent smell go hand in hand. Through the wonderful tour that Octavio and Lisa from the Bordsteinlobby e.V. implemented on the first days in the city, I learned that Chemnitz used to smell a lot like Trabant oil and that the pollution from the surrounding open-cast mines virtually took over the city.
So the (apparent) neutrality of smell must be something really important for everyone and for the history of the city. It's almost like a figurehead, a kind of beckoning. The neutral scent reminds us to forget and leave behind who we were and hints at who we want to be.
The tabula rasa or white-scented canvas awakens my imagination, just as empty buildings do. What would happen if a foreigner - which I am - not only reimagined but recreated the smells of Sonnenberg? What if I told a fictional story of imaginative scents of Sonnenberg?"
Tainá: "In my mind the district and its neighbourhood very beautiful. I like the view of the city from the "top" of Sonneberg. Sometimes at sunset, a mysterious mist covers parts of the buildings. The view of the rooftops is breathtaking. My favourite food shop in town "Peacefood" is located here - my strongest connection to food here. They have a good selection of ingredients and the diversity is visible, tangible and you can understand through the sense of taste the importance of preserving diversity on our planet. Taste is one of the most compelling senses we have. I think it is the sense we trust and understand the most."
Can you give us a brief preview of the work in progress? What can visitors look forward to during the presentation week from 12.12. to 18.12.?
Klara: "Because of the current world madness, I have been very interested lately in self-care experiences and how to create rituals - how to give people space to process all that we go through in the art context.
For example, in Berlin I created an all-white space, including a large white cushion (7m) in a gallery space in Berlin-Mitte. The space was perfumed with sea and air scents, and I designed a repetitive droning sound to help visitors relax. I wanted people to be able to come and stay in the space for as long as they needed to. A break from the pandemic and their personal lives.
Here at Sonnenberg I am working on combining those self-care practices with the neutral aromas of the neighbourhood. For this, I have designed a ritual self-care rug that is made of wool. The rug contains various symbols woven into it. They are representations of my own healing and caring practices. I am aware that this is very private and not everyone could relate to it, so I want to share my practices and bring them to a more personal (rather than private) level - the connection between the smell of the neighbourhood and what we can do to feel better by imagining what scents we could create together for a better future."
Tainá: "I am creating an installation of seven large prints (3.5m x 2m) and seven videos, in collaboration with Chemnitz:innen from different backgrounds. The installation uses the self to unpack terms that reflect identity and symbolism. The individuals or so-called "entities" depicted in the prints act as a surface to sensitise comments on issues related to diversity. The visual embodiment of food unfolds personal and collective identity, and connections between elements and areas that have been themes since the dawn of humanity."
‣DOCUMENTATION
JULIA KÜTTNER
