Ingredients of Encounters: Recipes of Reciprocations
Two gatherings on 30th and 31st July 2022
Poetry, participatory performance, projection, potlis and potions
This work was developed during a collaborative residency with Jyothidas K.V. at the Van Gogh House, London, UK. We dive into archives, objects, and physical fragments of cities and sites where our words encounter contexts that are site-specific. Continuing a series of works earlier created for Miami in 2021 and New Delhi in 2019, this work stems out of written conversational exchanges that include text and poetry that build a series of interactive engagements to look under peels of paint and plaster, engage with forgotten histories and draw references with architectural excerpts that point toward historic continuities.
The Van Gogh House London seeks to share the history of 87 Hackford Road, the Georgian terrace where Vincent Van Gogh lived between 1873 to 1874. Rather than become a time capsule of Van Gogh’s year in Brixton, 87 Hackford Road celebrates the house’s remarkable legacy by hosting artist residencies in addition to guided tours, exhibitions and events, to create a space that is generative and a history that is ever evolving.
Both of us carried our tools (literal, literary, imaginative and experiential), and one secret historical ingredient that was disclosed to one another on the third week of the residency. The ingredient meets stimulants derived from the house archives and its present context, to understand our histories, its trajectories, and was shared with the audience via two gatherings. In the first one titled "Recipoems: Trails of Reciprocity" the ingredients were concealed yet told tales about itself through its shape, size, scent and weight. In the second, they were present in their many iterations.
We worked on two text pieces that created participatory performances by the visitors, written in response to fragments of paper with calligraphic writing found under the floorboards in Van Gogh’s room, now archived and placed in the house-museum, providing a prompt and a start to the work the audiences encountered. They were also prompted to take as many posters of the text they read during the participatory encounter and place the writing in this city at any place, private or public, that they feel suits the conversation it presents.
Other works in this series:
Ingredients of Encounters, KNMA, New Delhi, 2023
Ingredients of Encounters, Van Gogh House and Myatt's Field Park, London, 2022
Capital Formation/No Exit Nation, Dimensions Variable, Miami, 2021
Capital Formation/No Exit Nation, Shrine Empire, New Delhi, 2019
Public Performance at Myatt's Field Park:
Recipoems: Trails of Reciprocity
30th July, at 6:30 and 7:15 pm
Roundhouse, Myatt's Field Park, Cormont Road, SE5 9RA
We welcome you to a participatory performance sharing written and uttered words, fragments of recipes, and refreshments that tell stories. Open to all ages, this event of sharing will take place at the Roundhouse with work that involves performance, poetry, prints, and potions.
Tea-Time Feast at Van Gogh House
Carefully Attend
31st July, 4-6pm
87 Hackford Road, SW9 0RE
Carefully attend,
to the creaks of the floor, the creeks between its boards.
Carefully attend the blue circle that warns you of the swirls, curls, and loops in time.
Carefully attend the knots that twist and tighten themselves from time to time to timelessness.
As a culmination of the residency, research, and ongoing thoughts, Ayesha and Jyothi invite you to the house for a (tea-time) feast of flavours.
Ingredients
A drawing on cloth made by Jyothidas that references Cassava/Kappa (left)
The creation of the potion, the ingredients within the small potlis that fragment the materials contained in the larger potli from the Myatt's Field park gathering (right)
Dried Kappa along with a video of the process of washing Kappa and a sound bite of it (exuding from the plants)
