Dinner with art (The Kitchen Archives)
Erick CarrilloThe Kitchen Archives
by: Carlos Valdez-Kehoe
The Kitchen Archives is a weekly performance hosted at Fondita Mestiza that reimagines dining as a platform for exploring issues of cultural consumption and systemic racism. By using food as both a means and an end, the project combines the performative nature of eating with the discussion dynamics of a roundtable.
The performance integrates statistics, archival material, and personal testimonies from Mexican restaurant workers in Dublin, highlighting their experiences with structural inequality and discrimination. The meal itself becomes a living embodiment of these issues, inviting the audience to engage directly with the often unseen realities behind cultural products.
As participants actively engage in these consumption dynamics, they are encouraged to critically examine their roles in these systemic problems and contribute to a broader conversation about integration and social change. The project aims not only to raise awareness but also to serve as a catalyst for meaningful change in consumption patterns.
The Dinner with art includes a three course menu:
To Start:
Blue corn masa atop a bed of black beans, garnished with crumbled feta cheese and a dollop of sour cream. Finished with a drizzle of salsa macha, infused with a subtle hint of mezcal.
Main Course:
A selection of traditional tacos featuring in the table different dishes to share. The dishes are: slow-braised pork crackling in a green tomatillo sauce, spicy chorizo with potatoes, chicken tinga with a smoky chipotle kick, and slow-cooked beans.
Dessert:
Creamy nogada ice cream, flavored with walnuts and topped with pomegranate seeds.
Book a seat for the Dinner with art
About the artist:
Carlos Valdez-Kehoe is a multidisciplinary artist working with story-based research as primary material. Influenced by sociolinguistics and anthropology, Valdez looks into contextual elements such as imagery, symbols and code systems of written and spoken testimonies to expound upon the emotional mechanisms of change and adaptation behind them. His work, deeply ingrained in his migratory experience, explores in a recurring manner the notions of aspiration, mother tongue, national identity and cultural assimilation. Through diverse media such as performance, installation and gastronomy, Valdez seeks to generate an experiential narrative of that which goes beyond the communicative plane.
