BONBON TÈ MAJIK
Bonbon Tè Majik (2022)
Installation view documenta fifteen in Kassel, Germany.
As part of Atis Rezistans’s participation in documenta fifteen, the duo Lafleur & Bogaert made Bonbon Tè Majik (Magical Mud Cakes) and offered them to the public.
Haitian mud cakes, typically prepared from a special type of mud mixed with salt and vegetable fat, are often described by Western commentators as an unequivocal sign of the country’s pervasive poverty, literally forcing people to eat dirt. Yet others argue that they are in fact a traditional nutritional supplement, favoured especially by pregnant women for their mineral values.
In fact, the practice of eating earth or soil-like substances, also called geophagia, is known in numerous regions around the world; it was first described by Hippocrates almost 2500 years ago and has been attributed religious properties in Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Vodou.
For documenta fifteen, Lafleur & Bogaert produced their mud cakes with soil from a clay pit near Kassel, questioning what gets lost in translation, but also how meanings and values shift (in cultural, religious, nutritional, and monetary terms) when local practices are dislocated. In this way, the work of this collective complicates the reading of a practice in terms of what is perceived as a response to a crisis vs what is valued or recognised as local knowledge and practice.
Julie Ren, Charlotte Matter, Rosa Sancarlo & Virginia Marano.
Published in Third Text: “Crisis and Collectives Shaping Art Events” in January 2024.
Bonbon Tè Majik (2022)
Performance baking and selling of mud cakes at documenta fifteen in Kassel, Germany.
Bonbon Tè Majik (2023) At the Rising Arts Festival in Melbourne, Australia.
Bonbon Tè Majik (2023)
At the Rising Arts Festival in Melbourne, Australia.
Bonbon Tè Majik (2024)
At the Verbeke Foundation in Stekene, Belgium.