a (round) appetites (i): a colonial performance: a list: colonial consumption, present tense neo-colonial extractive consumption, appetite vs taste, vs the taste-makers, distorting itself/themselves, the European imperial construction of white and European civility exemplified by a cultivated taste unravelling it’s very foundations by that same civility, that same insatiable hunger for labouring brown bodies, for the indigenous populations that serve and protect the land, for an insatiable hunger to assert dominance over the land and the bodies that guard it, the taste-makers define a “productive” use of the land, a continuous circling, encircling, labelling, grouping, reproducing, in an consumptive cycle, consuming and cannibalising the other, make in/visible, creating difference, only to eat it again and again, through cultural, social & spiritual appropriation – the threat of the other, the dangerous potential of difference wil be sliced, absorbed and digested, for more hairy morsels – the tough sinewy bites, that require more chewing, that don’t digest so smooth, so easy, can be catalogued, aestheticized and transformed into an enigmatic object lesson for Europeans – a conceptual schema.

In a world where 'capitalism' reigns, a cup of coffee serves to feed the self-immolating fire of productivity. In this show at Plan B, five artists, brought together by the barista work that keeps them (barely) financially afloat, offer a collective way of holding space for nostalgia, self-care, revolution, different sorts of privileges, fatigue, and violence.

An overextracted espresso comes from removing too many solubles from the coffee grounds, leaving a taste that is bitter, drying, hollow, and empty. It's here that we consider(ed) using the overextracted espresso as an analogy for violent neo-colonial resource extraction in the Global South by the Global North, enforcing a continual "opening up" via trade; propelled by expansionist, hyper-capitalist logics of power that leave the bitter taste of land dispossession and system rot. Often, these strategies are paired with the flattening of rich indigenous histories and cultures. The West builds power fantasies of "developing" worlds stuck in primitive ways, pathologising difference, and erasing its own responsibility, both in creating and maintaining asymmetrical relations. The marketing of these false political ecologies enshrouds Western values of individualist entitlement and corporate greed, leaving entire worlds hollowed and emptied out.

Exhibition:
Januari 27 - February 11
Saturday & Sunday, 14.00-17.00

Events:
January 26, 19.30-20.00: Alma Kim's country music album - Country Green

January 28, 14.00-17.00: Collective reading from Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J. Brown

February 4, 14.00-17.00: Reading and discussing a segment from - The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition by Thenmozhi Soundararajan.

February 11, 16:00 - 17:00: Lecture-performance around appetites (cw: eating, violence, sexuality)

appetites (i), film collage/essay, 23:11

Shown as part of Overextracted, with Shreya de Souza, Camilla Kövecses, Alma Kim and Stijn Pommee, at Plan B Projects, Amsterdam Noord.

Poster by Our Polite Society.

Photographs taken by Camilla Kövecses and Alma Kim.

citation list coming soon.