Artist Reading and Talk: Do They Hesitate to Eat with You?

Dalit memory texts, autobiographies, poetry, and songs are overflowing with references to food and water, laying bare how the simplest of acts like sharing a meal or a drink with a friend is an impossible feat in the world of caste. Having been denied access to the written word or any tools for documentation for centuries, Goody is interested in what Dalit people today choose to record.   

In her reading performance ‘Do they hesitate to eat with you?’, painful experiences of hunger, begging, shame, guilt and eating leftovers weave into lighter ones of feasting, joy, delicacies and happiness. Goody extracts and adapts Dalit memory texts into recipe booklets to be shared, to make visible, to ‘see’, everyday instances of caste violence, taking note of daily struggles and quiet acts of agency.

This talk is open to anyone, but please register here.

Workshop: Pulping Power and Making Ghosts

Prior to the artist talk, a workshop will be held at 15:00. Limited places are available for this workshop. If you are interested, please email decolonialfutures@uva.nl.

This workshop is an extension of Rajyashri Goody’s practice of making paper pulp from the book of Manu. An ancient Hindu text dating back 2000 years, the book has outlined rules, laws and horrific practices that deny basic rights to equality and human dignity to Dalit people – formerly called untouchable – , by strict control of shelter, food, water, literacy, and physical contact. 

Copies of the Manusmriti have been burnt often by Dalit leaders and activists as a symbol of outright rejection of caste. The act of burning this text is considered violent and punishable by those in power, but they turn a blind eye to the violence that this text prescribes. Goody chooses not to burn, but to pulp copies of the book, and make new paper out of them – a quiet gesture at a fresh start, but a recognition too, that in these new sheets, the ghost of Manu still lives, as caste continues to be so deeply embedded in our social landscape. 

Participants are invited to bring a text/book/piece of writing/art or printed copies of these on paper that they may have a complicated or difficult relationship with. During the workshop, they will be reading extracts aloud from these and discussing the narratives related to them. Consequently, everyone will be pulping these papers together, and making new plain sheets.

Bio

Rajyashri Goody (1990) b. Pune, India, lives and works in India and the Netherlands. Goody has a B.A in Sociology from Fergusson College Pune, and an M.A in Visual Anthropology from the University of Manchester, UK. She was a resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam in 2021-2023.   

Goody’s practice explores lived experiences of hunger, hesitation, fear, feasting, joy, and courage. She draws upon literature, poetry, landscape and personal images to hold space for what Dalit people choose to record, for contemplating food and caste, the stomach and oppression.