Post-Colonial Açorda, 2023

During our artistic residency at Pivô Salvador, we developed a collaborative performance with Casa de Angola in Bahia, expanding our ongoing research into food, memory, and post-colonial histories.

On October 24th 2023, Casa de Angola hosted the “Post-Colonial Açorda Activation”, an event that blended gastronomy, performance, and activism. This activation was part of our continued investigation into cooking as a performative, political, and artistic act. By using gastronomy and contemporary art as tools to construct situations, we aimed to create a space where we could, as a collective, share post-colonial histories, analyze processes of early forgetting, and reactivate memory.

Visual artist RitaGT, Portuguese with deep emotional ties to Angola, and Afro-Brazilian chef Thiago Moura invited participants to engage in a shared experience—rethinking the post-colonial entanglements that connect Angola, Brazil, and Portugal.

At the heart of this performance was Açorda, a dish that, much like moqueca, carries the weight of colonial exchange, migration, and cultural resistance. Through its preparation and communal sharing, we opened a space for collective reflection, where flavors, histories, and narratives intertwined. The evening was further enriched by the sounds of DJ Fábio Lima, weaving an auditory bridge between these geographies.

This event, much like our broader work, sought to unearth forgotten stories, reclaim ancestral knowledge, and create moments of connection through food, art, and storytelling.