Moravia

Moravia
Multi sensorial culinary and sonic art experience
Exploratorio
Medellin, Col – Oct 2019
In alliance with
Explora Museum (Col.)

Group of collaborators: Cleyda Murillo (cooking and testimony), Camilo Cantor (cooking), Celeste Betancour (cooking), Biviana Alvarez (cooking), Alex Jaramillo (market shouting), Ofelia Pérez (market shouting)

Moravia is the result of field work in the city of Medellin after an invitation by curator Camilo Cantor from the Parque Explora Museum to work in the area of Moravia. Here I met Cleyda Murillo, a community leader, cook and horticulturist who has been crucial in the development of social projects in this area. Cleyda’s mother migrated to Medellin at a very young age, and she became part of a group of migrants who built this area with the help of university students. Together they battled police and other official forces who contested its construction. Cleyda’s mother was also a community leader which inspired her to continue her legacy, together with a large group of single mothers who have been conducting formidable work improving the conditions for people’s well-being in this vulnerable area. Food has been the central element in the projects that Cleyda has developed in her neighbourhood, which include communitarian kitchens and horticulture gardens.

With Camilo Cantor, the museum curator, two members of the staff, and Alex Jaramillo and Ofelia Perez, two market shouters, we organized a performance which starred the Bandeja Paisa (“local tray”). This traditional dish of this region of Colombia is prepared in very similar fashion to English breakfast, since it comprises crunchy pork skin, chorizo (a type of sausage), fried eggs, avocado, rice and rellena (similar to black pudding).

The selection of this dish was made to ensure that all the ingredients were available in local shops in Moravia. Here, a gesture as simple as buying local products is significant in terms of the freshness of the ingredients, the environmental impact of production and transportation, and foremost, in the sense of community that it creates.

Links

https://www.parqueexplora.org/exploratorio