Getting to know about the ongoing Vienna based research on Dietary change and a regenerative approach to agriculture and forestry to address the climate and biodiversity crisis was deeply transformative. Specially to learn that there is actual data that supports that although structural changes are need, that changing how we eat does have an effect on climate change. And although I already aimed to eat plant-based, local and organic, it gave me a ground for the political aspects of my cooking and eating practices.
This work is inspired by ways of cooking from Peru but also from diets of pre-industrial Austria that were largely plant-based, in which animal fats and meats were eaten occasionally or seasonally. Diets which include: Cabbage, turnips, rutabagas, beets; Legumes (beans, lentils, peas); Cereals (rye, barley, oats, millet, later potatoes and maize after their arrival); and were cooking took place via boiling, stewing, and baking into simple, filling porridges, soups, and breads.
For my artistic contribution I made a ritual offering to the plants and beings on which we depend to survive on an open space of the Kunsthaus Wien.
Next to the offering I shared a leaflet that summarized some of the main points articulated by the researchers. And I produced this online collection of cooking Recipes for Survival (2024). These contributions, inspired by the scientific research, were presented as part of a Lecture Performance.
Recipes for Survival (2024)
Imayna Caceres
Print on paper 21 x 29,7 cm
Imayna Caceres. Druck auf Papier, zur freien Mitnahme / Print on paper for free-take-away.
Lecture "Organizing our choices for survival"
"The researchers of this project aim to show the connection between food systems and greenhouse gas emissions. In it a direct long-distance impact is made evident. But we also get concrete evidence for Vienna that the more animal products our food has, the more distant they come from, and the more pesticides plants have, the worse it is for the environment. The solution would seem evident (and I say this): fewer or no animal products, free of pesticides or bio, and local or close sources. Unfortunately, such choices are connected to a multiplicity of factors."
"We are in a world of post-development, post-progress, and degrowth, where circularity is a basic means of relating to human-made matter. And there is no way out without transforming our ways of living, without deconstructing what we know in order for the flow of life to continue. Without undoing the sequels of the capitalocene and the plantationocene, without gauging the impact of a narrative that believed that growth and development were purely positive and that technology would bring us to a world of well-being. Without facing all the exploitation, pain, and death that this project required and requires."
Excerpts from: Imayna Caceres. "Organizing our choices for survival". Lecture given as part of Sensing Resonance at Kunsthaus Wien on 24 June, 2024.