The echoes of silence

To migrate is to become entangled between wet tongues
through which words slip,
navigating verbs in parallel tenses.

The echoes of silence is a long-term research/creation project developed with transatlantic ingredients. Each stage of the process unfolds into different forms of sharing: readings, publications, installations, performances, dialogues, and dinners. The project seeks to weave networks of affinity through artistic practice, tracing a past-present narrative of migration. What are the echoes in the unfolding of a migration process? What do we cook when we are far from home?

Writing/reading takes the form of chronicles. Writing about migration becomes an exercise in thinking-and-doing with the whole body—a way of writing to idear (Anzaldúa, 2015). These textualities, together with cooking, form the core of this project. Writing/reading is done with the body, cooking is done with the body, and these actions give rise to somatic practices and gestures. Connecting migration with textualities and cooking activates conversations and embodies lived experiences of foreignness.

At the same time, food serves as a way to soothe homesickness. The ingredients we cook with nourish this research, both as a remedy and as witnesses to the journeys they have traveled to reach our hands. Fruits and vegetables act as materials imbued with memory, archiving stories of migration and globalization. This geographic movement is studied and expressed through plant-based recipes.

Violence reproduces itself, twists and squeezes
during wordless service.
The silence at the service of history.