This cooking workshop offers an opportunity to come together to prepare tamales as a group—a recipe that requires time, many helping hands, and the sharing of stories and anecdotes that become an integral part of the recipe. Here, cooking together becomes a way to reflect on the collective, on the kitchen as a space for oral tradition, and on how these recipes evolve in the context of migration—all while celebrating the act of preparing and wrapping food with many hands, in contrast to increasingly individualized ways of life.
The tamal is a dish found in various Latin American countries: tamales, humitas, hallacas, bollos, envueltos. Its main ingredient is corn, a staple that underpins many dietary traditions and travels across different regions, carrying with it forms of identity and memory. The tamal is typically wrapped in banana or corn husks, then slowly steamed. It is often prepared in large quantities and serves as a staple during festivities and celebrations, while also being part of everyday life.
During the preparation and cooking process, a space for conversation, sharing, and reflection opens up around what this dish might evoke. The goal is also to connect cooking with forms of dramaturgy, while reflecting on systems of collective farming such as the milpa, a Mesoamerican agricultural practice based on the shared cultivation of corn, beans, and squash. The workshop invites participants to cook together, reflect on this dish, and share the meal as a group.
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Maria Fernanda Ordoñez is a visual and performing artist whose relationship with cooking is rooted in family, community, and work experiences. Born into a large family in Colombia, she grew up in an environment where food played a central role in gatherings and celebrations. Her grandparents ran a family restaurant, and her aunt organized meals for events—contexts in which she became involved in food preparation at a very young age. Cooking and selling food subsequently became an activity that accompanied her through various stages of her life, including after her arrival in Switzerland, where cooking served as both a means of subsistence and a space for exploration—particularly through the preparation of communal meals for art openings, festivals, and independent venues. She is interested in the kitchen as a space for transmission, community, and the circulation of knowledge. Food allows her to reflect on the connections between diet, territory, memory, migration, and their ecological and human dimensions. She sees it as a space where urgent questions converge, stemming from an act as fundamental as eating. This workshop was held at the espace eeeh! in Nyon, at the FAR—Festival des arts vivants in Nyon, and at the VoQueer association in Lausanne.
