Earth- Cañari Relations: fooding

The Uncommoning in the Andes project was inaugurated with a pampa mesa. In a pamba mesa, a long piece of fabric spread on the ground welcomes and gathers a group of people to share food. Often, the pamba mesa inaugurates or celebrates a communal project that requires collective labouring (minka).  By placing food on the fabric, the pamba mesa brings people closer to the ground as a symbolic way to recognize that eating is part of an array of connections and processes. Taking food with and holding it on labouring hands acknowledge the soil in which the food has grown, and the histories and silenced presences of the land.  The pamba mesa is first and foremost an act of conviviality.  It invites communities to seat on the ground, serve each other, pass food around, and feel its sensuous consistencies that nourish bodies.