Pickle Bar Presents: Digestive System of Humanity Goda Palekaitė and Jonas Palekas 22.02.2024 Free. RSVP required: https://eventbrite.nl

The project Digestive System of Humanity is a collaboration between a sister and a brother, an artist and a chef. Based on ongoing research, it addresses the hybridity of history and the agency of collective imagination by inviting the audience to become members of a ritualistic eating-reading group. The performance script comprises numerous characters written by Goda and meals prepared by Jonas, and is arranged as an immersive experience where all the audience members take a role.

Reminiscent of a theatre rehearsal or a dinner at a friend’s place, the characters shape-shift with every iteration but usually include Ancient Greek poetess Sappho, Swedish mystic and medium Emanuel Swedenborg, Karaite archaeologist and falsifier Avraham Firkovič, and many others whose existences questioned cultural clichés and political impositions. People of diverse identities, who operated outside the discourses of power, and were seen as troublemakers or antiheroes, are invited to the dinner — to discuss and digest what bothers them the most.

Goda Palekaitė is an artist 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. Goda’s recent solo shows were opened at Västerås Art Museum (Serpentine Spine 2023), Kunsthal Gent in Ghent / Editorial in Vilnius (The Strongest Muscle in the Human Body is the Tongue 2021), Centre Tour à Plomb in Brussels (Architecture of Heaven 2020), Konstepidemin in Gothenburg (Liminal Minds 2019), and RawArt Gallery in Tel Aviv (Legal Implications of a Dream 2018).

Jonas Palekas is a chef and food artist whose practice and research interests include performative dinners, experimental food system design, speculations on food futures, advocacy of ecological relations, and microbiological activism. 2022-2023 Jonas was a resident at the Jan Van Eyck Academy in Maastricht, Netherlands. He is a co-founder of the restaurant Delta Mityba (2016-2023), which for years played a major role in the Vilnius cultural community. Besides that, Jonas participated in artistic projects and events across Europe, including Biennale di Venezia 2017 and 2018, Volcano Extravaganza 2019 in Italy, Kunstverein Amsterdam 2019, and others. With interests in the social, cultural, and ecological implications of what constitutes the culinary arts, Jonas works across the boundaries of human nutritional habits and raises questions about eating in our uncertain times.