Krzysztof Gutfranski, Sarvenaz Mostofey, Guilherme Lessa, and Daniella Domingues, “Pineapple in a Jar”, performance
27 August 2021, 19:00
BERLIN, S&T RESIDENCY, ARCHIVE
There are forms of fermentation that would be unthinkable in certain parts of the world. Residents of Slavs and Tatars, sound artist Sarvenaz Mostofey, together with researcher and curator Krzysztof Gutfranski, join forces with Brazilian writer Guilherme Lessa to create an immersive evening focused on lacto-fermenting taboos in Brazil, having the pineapple as an allegory of this taboo and of all things exotic, as well as a reference for the tastes and aromas to be experienced during the event.
The pineapple is called “abacaxi” in Brazilian-Portuguese, an Indigenous name from the Tupi language meaning fruit that smells intense and pleasant. In contemporary parlance, when Brazilians say something is an “abacaxi”, they mean that it is a problem. Furthermore, “peeling a pineapple” means “solving a difficult problem”. During colonization times, pineapples were initially used whole in Europe for display at dinner parties, rather than being eaten, and were used again and again until they began to rot. After its consumption became more popular, it made its way to become the third most economically significant tropical fruit in the world, with main producers located in Costa Rica, Brazil, and the Philippines.
The website of the project is available here.
The event was part of Gutfrański and Mostofey’s residency at Slavs and Tatars’ studio. It happened during the Festival Ortstermin in Moabit, 2021.