Performative Dinner Studies I & II

June - July 2021

The performative dinner studies were born with "The Last Supper Project", a choral investigation of the Mediterranean that develops as a processual and relational work through moments of study/conversation between researchers who meet within the framework of the Domus residency programme, of which De Novellis is the artistic director.

Conceived as a dinner installation, 'The Last Supper' is a ritual of sharing food and knowledge on her favourite themes: environmental and gender violence, care and regeneration.

After an initial study phase at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, Romina De Novellis will present a series of ritualised preparatory conversations and dinners with some of the researchers invited to DOMUS. The first one on the 17th of June at the Institut Culturel Italien de Paris and a second performative study will then take place in the forest of Fontainebleau as part of the contemporary art festival Les Nuits des forêts.

The final phase of the project will take place in Galatina at the end of July. The guests of the DOMUS residency will meet in a field of olive trees dried out by the bacteria and all together they will finish their last discussion on the Mediterranean by eating their last dinner at sunset.

Through the project The Last Supper, born with the DOMUS artistic residency in Galatina, Romina De Novellis opens her creative process to a shared investigation of the most pressing contemporary issues, through a feminist and decolonial sensibility and an artistic perspective that aims to combine theoretical thinking with artistic and community practices.