Do you enjoy growing plants and making food?

Jorge Menna Barreto, an artist and researcher from Brazil, invites local farmers, growers, chefs, restaurateurs and food lovers to join him for a workshop celebrating this autumn’s harvest.

We will hear more about Barreto’s artistic practice whilst using our hands to prepare some simple but delicious food. Amongst others, he will speak about Restauro, a restaurant project that he conceived for the 32nd São Paulo Biennial (2016) and his experiments at the food lab of the Jan Van Eyck Academie in the Netherlands, where he is currently in residence.

Whilst sitting around the table, we will also hear about Barreto’s idea of site-specificity and why he uses locally sourced seasonal plants for his projects. Barreto has been invited to participate in Liverpool Biennial 2020 and this workshop is the beginning of a conversation around food, local produce and the environment.

Jorge Menna Barreto (b. 1970, Araçatuba, São Paulo, Brazil) is an artist and researcher who lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Throughout his practice, Barreto has let specific sites determine what he will build and, more recently, what he will eat. Passionate about land art, site-specificity, plant-based food and multispecies assemblages, he considers our digestive system as a sculptural tool that has the ability to shape our environment. His long-term project Restauro: environmental sculpture was first presented at the 32nd São Paulo Biennial, Brazil (2016) and travelled to the Serpentine Galleries, UK (2017). Barreto is a professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro and shares his research through lectures, writings and art.