Performance von Daniela Zambrano Almidón
Saturday, 25/07/2026 / 05:00 PM - 07:00 PM / Kunsthaus Hamburg
- queer friendly
- Free of charge
It is said that fire reveals hidden stories. What happens when coffee beans encounter this heat? What memories, sounds, and stories emerge?
In her interdisciplinary practice, Daniela Zambrano Almidón combines artistic research with questions of memory, decolonization processes, and the ecological, technological, and social interconnections of the Andean region. Starting with the smell, taste, and sound of coffee roasting, her lecture and sound performance unfolds a multifaceted narrative about memory, knowledge, and the transmission as well as the detachment from traditions and cultural identities.
Guided by our sense of smell and our own experiences, we embark with the artist on a journey 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 here is inextricably linked to colonialism, geopolitical power structures, and civilizing projects—to the settlement of Austrian and German colonists, to extractive economic practices, and to the dispossession of indigenous communities in the central Peruvian rainforest. Thus, the scent of freshly roasted coffee not only evokes associations of enjoyment and community but also conveys a history of displacement, appropriation, and violence.
With her performance, Daniela Zambrano Almidón picks up on questions explored by Melike Kara in her exhibition Whispers at the Kunsthaus Hamburg: How do memories persist when their material carriers disappear? While in the installation, burned photographs are integrated into the space as ash, and coffee grounds lose their interpretive 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.
In cooperation with the Gemüse Gallery
Venue: Lange Str. 3, 20359 Hamburg
Please register by emailing: register@kunsthaushamburg.de
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