decolonialityathome

The closeness between us as friends is beautiful, yet confronting, as our deepest vulnerabilities come to the forefront, especially when you live and study together. To establish sustainable relationships and create mutual respect for each other is something to learn, but how?

We have noticed that talking can be a form of transformative experience, especially when there is mutual understanding for the silenced parts of our histories. As we are also curious about our body-languages to identify needs, we were wondering what else in each one of us’s life is an act of care-taking.

In D-coloni-eL-e-T@home, we gather for daily activities in which one of us is more experienced than the other — yoga, cooking and mukbang — to let connection happen, to practice vulnerability and to share embodied knowledge. We see these activities as acts of positioning, that manifest each one of us in who we are and encourage bodily engagement with position as well as a reflection that is of privilege.

D-coloni-eL-e-T @home - in collaboration with Marcel Mander

What we learn through experience is that our capacity to establish deep and profound connections in friendship strengthens all our intimate bonds.
- bell hooks

Theory starts from home.
- Sara Ahmed

Theoretical Framework

cooking as act of care

Daily filmed activities

One of Marcel’s practices to re-connect to his Filipinx heritage is through food. By remembering how his mother is cooking and letting his sensorial knowledge lead, he re-interprets traditional Filipinx dishes. This inspired me to share Chinese dishes in cooking them in my way, and to fuse all of them to represent the beauty of mixed heritage and hybridity.

mukbang as act of care

Noticing an increase in anxiety since the pandemic hit, I started to exercise vinyāsa yoga at home, usually in the morning. The smooth transitions between asanas paired with deep breathing releases tension and helps me to start the day. To share this experience of self-care, Marcel joins occasionally, because exercising together feels more motivating to him.

European manners have taught us to stay silent while eating, to maintain a straight posture when seated at the table, and that touching food with bare hands is dirty and ‚uncivilised‘. By filming us while eating, sharing thoughts and breaking with those oppressive habits, we reclaim natural ways of dining and dinner as shared activity for storytelling; together with our friend and roommate Teng Teng.

when there is no one I could ask how to make certain Chinese dishes, I looked for different sources.

One of my favorite dishes when I visited family in China was egg plant with garlic sauce 鱼香茄子.

Made by Lau's YouTube Channel was very inspiring to me as the dad was sharing his cooking knowledge as retired chef and after talking about the origins as well as sharing personal stories at the dining table.

remembering dishes from the past

INSPIRATION FOR COOKING AND MUKBANG

Inspired by the workshop with Sarafina Paulina Bonita about auto-theoretical writing, we came up with the name D-coloni-eL-e-T.
To show that decoloniality can be fun.

Seeing me thriving and having fun by sharing these activities with my close friends feels empowering and motivates me to experiment more with the footage we filmed.
Focusing on the joyful parts is what I want to keep in mind.