On Saturday, 4 November, 7 p. m. Cultural Complex SODAS 2123 (Vitebsko g. 23, Vilnius) invites you to “Humors”, a new performative lecture by Goda Palekaitė and Jonas Palekas.
The forecast on the future of humanity looks rather grim. In the face of war and ecological crisis a need becomes apparent to not just cultivate and manufacture, but to also store and protect, to rework supply chains, change our relationship to nourishment and the lived environment. How will we work it out in the future – perhaps we will start consuming people? Or embark to carefully nourish bacteria, to reclaim the public canteens? Or rather get down to collectively shelling peas in our expanded families, preparing each other for the long winter?
With this lecture, SODAS 2123 continues a series of events dedicated to the “shadow” side of culinary culture – the core tenets of its organization and presentation, which cross the boundaries of taste and texture. In these events, artistic tools are used in search of a non-consumerist notion of nourishment, seeking to understand what the materials entering our bodies and communities give to us. In freeform lectures the visitors are invited to step into SODAS 2123 as a habitat for shaping the future, for learning to survive under the strangest conditions experienced so far.
In “Humors”, artist and researcher Goda Palekaitė and chef Jonas Palekas invite you to participate in a trial study – a tasting session for experimental beverages inspired by pre-modern theory of medicine. Guests of the event will be offered cocktails made for the occasion and representing the four primal fluids – “humors” – of the human body: blood, phlegm, yellow and black bile. In the medicinal and artistic traditions alike, a lack, excess or need for these elements could determine not just the state of one’s physical or emotional health, but also the unfolding of history or future, the order of the cosmos, the tricks of fortune. By inviting us to reflect on these experiences together, the artists pull us into yet another story, in which the boundaries of magical and medicinal knowledge are neither clear, nor important.
Goda Palekaitė is a Brussels-based artist and researcher working in the intersection of contemporary art, performance, artistic research, literature, and anthropology. Her practice evolves around projects exploring the politics of historical narratives, the agency of dreams and imagination, and social conditions of creativity. Palekaitė’s solo shows have been presented at Beursschouwburg, Brussels, Västerås Konstmuseum, Kunsthal Gent, Editorial in Vilnius, Centre Tour à Plomb in Brussels, Konstepidemin in Gothenburg and RawArt Gallery in Tel Aviv. Her performances and installations have been presented at Whitechapel Gallery in London, BOZAR Brussels, Swamp pavilion in The Biennale Architettura 2018 in Venice, Vilnius international theater festival Sirenos, Kanal – Centre Pompidou in Brussels and others. In 2020 she published her first book of fiction, Schismatics (Lapas Books, Vilnius). In 2019 Palekaitė received The Golden Stage Cross and the Young Artist’s Prize from the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Hasselt University and PXL-MAD School of Arts.
Jonas Palekas is a chef, food thinker, and product designer working in the field of gastronomy. With interests in social, cultural, and ecological contexts of today’s world and with his education in culinary arts, Jonas works across the boundaries of human nutritional habits and raises questions related to food in our uncertain times. In 2017 Jonas founded a restaurant Delta Mityba in the artists’ center Autarkia, which played a major role in Vilnius’s contemporary art scene up to its closing in 2023. Palekas participates actively in artistic projects and events across Europe, including Biennale di Venezia 2017 and 2018, Volcano Extravaganza 2019 in Italy, Kunstverein Amsterdam 2019. In 2022–2023 he was a resident at Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, Netherlands.
The event series is curated by Monika Kalinauskaitė
Graphic design by Monika Janulevičiūtė
The event series is supported by Vilnius City Municipality
The event is free of charge. The event is free and will be performed in Lithuanian. The number of beverages for tasting is limited.
