The Vegetable Parliament: THE VEGETABLE BANQUET – postponed

PLEASE NOTE:
The Conquering Banquet, originally scheduled for 13 September, will be postponed, as the milpa growing onto the parliament will not yet be ready for harvest at that time. 

A new date in October will be announced shortly.

Yet on 13 September, in anticipation of the banquet to come, we shall gather for a Live Painting event, a rite of colors and gestures, to prepare the ground for the harvest celebration. 

Further details will be announced in due course.

The vegetables that have grown in this milpa are not simply food—they are carriers of stories and cosmologies that can be traced back to centuries old Mexican milpas. They are witnesses of reciprocal ecosystems, care of natural resources and circular economies. In this final act, thought as a poetic reimagining of “ofrendas”—offerings, we plan to honour them. Not only as a singular moment of gratitude, but as a collaborative and symbolic ritual of understanding the wider stories that seeds bring with them.

“The Conquering Banquet” takes form as a participatory installation that binds the visible to the invisible, memory to matter, offering to act. Participants are invited to take part in this harvest ceremony, where each dish is composed of multiple parts that require connection, cooperation, and reciprocity to be fully experienced. 

The Vegetable Parliament gets transformed into a festive installation, with a working kitchen as its beating heart. The space is filled with conservation jars that preserve not only the vegetables but also fragments of seasonal knowledge, ancestral techniques, and collective labour. Living species get prepared as edible narratives. Visitors gather around a long table that stretches aceross the garden of silent green. The tablecloth traces the timeline of this milpa's cultivation.

As participants eat, the vegetables begin a subtle journey within the human body. Disguised as food, they slowly embark on a conquering voyage, whispering to each organ they pass different logics of time, ownership, care and appreciation. Their goal is not domination, but transformation. Maybe hearing the vegetables was the antidote all along.

Full programme: www.thevegetableparliament.com

Saturday, September 13
Garden
Start: 6 pm
Admission free
 

Team
Artist "The Conquering Banquet”: Inés Lauber
Artistic Director The Vegetable Parliament: José Délano

“The Vegetable Parliament” is supported by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds.