Strengthening social and ecological connections through shared meals
Every gathering of the Zanjas y Camellones project includes a shared meal. For co-initiator María Buenaventura—cook, artist, and researcher—collective eating is a central tool of cultural practice: it fosters connection, activates shared memories, and grounds both social and ecological relationships in everyday life.
The communal table extends beyond human participants—it makes tangible the reciprocal entanglements with light, soil, water, plants, and animals that make nourishment possible in the first place. In this sense, sharing meals is also a political gesture: it offers a sensory entry point into questions of care and reciprocity, reminding us that we are part of a larger metabolic system that must be nurtured and protected.
Maria Buenaventura, Diego Bermudez, Juliana Steiner, Lorena Rodriguez Gallo, Sabina Rodríguez, Abuela Blanca Nieves, Liliana Novoa, Milena Camacho, Diego Martínez Celis, among others
