Sus viejas manos aún sabían cómo volver con un cucharón de palo, los sonidos de café

It is said that fire brings hidden stories to light. What happens when coffee beans are exposed to this heat? What memories, sounds and stories emerge in the process?

In her interdisciplinary practice, Daniela Zambrano Almidón combines artistic research with questions of memory, processes of decolonisation and the ecological, technological and social interconnections of the Andean region. Taking the smell, taste and sound of coffee roasting as its starting point, her lecture and sound performance unfolds a multi-layered narrative about memory, knowledge and transmission of as well as the detachment from traditions and cultural identities.

Guided by our sense of smell and our own experiences, we join the artist on a journey back to the beginnings of coffee cultivation in the Huánuco region of Peru. Its sweet aroma can sometimes carry a bitter aftertaste. For the history of the plant is inextricably linked to colonialism, geopolitical power dynamics and civilizational projects – to the settlement of Austrian-German colonists, to extractivist economic systems and to the dispossession of indigenous communities in Peru’s central rainforest. Thus, the scent of freshly roasted coffee not only evokes associations with pleasure and community, but also conveys a history of displacement, appropriation and violence.

With her performance, Daniela Zambrano Almidón picks up on questions addressed by Melike Kara in her exhibition Whispers: How do memories persist when their material carriers disappear? Whilst the installation incorporates burnt photographs as ash within the space and coffee grounds used to paint the walls lose their interpretative function, the performance follows the memories inscribed in the sound, smell and taste of the coffee. Both works thus explore identity as an ongoing process of transformation, transmission and renegotiation.