Logo Goethe-Institut

South Africa

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2:00 PM-6:00 PM

Food as Memory

Storytelling circle/gathering|A storytelling session focused on the exchange of personal experiences and stories rooted in indigenous food and communal traditions around food.

Promotional graphic for “Food as Memory: Storytelling Circle,” featuring a brain-shaped illustration filled with scenes of indigenous foods, farming, cooking, and community gatherings, symbolizing the connection between food, memory, and shared traditions. © Goethe-Institut

Promotional graphic for “Food as Memory: Storytelling Circle,” featuring a brain-shaped illustration filled with scenes of indigenous foods, farming, cooking, and community gatherings, symbolizing the connection between food, memory, and shared traditions. © Goethe-Institut

The Food as Memory Storytelling Circle is part of our ongoing series of events engaging in dialogue around sustainable food systems, indigenous knowledge and cultivating community. This circle will create a shared space where participants come together to exchange personal experiences and stories rooted in indigenous food and communal traditions around food. Through storytelling and dialogue, we will unpack the cross-generational impact of knowledge sharing, the preservation of food traditions, stories and land, and how to create access in spaces that are not always accessible.

Everyone is invited to see themselves as a collector and holder of stories. No story is invaluable and every memory contributes to a living archive of food practices and cultural wisdom that strengthen community bonds and inspire sustainable futures. Together, we will listen, share, and honor diverse voices, ensuring that ancestral wisdom remains alive and accessible for generations to come.

Ntombekhaya Tisani will hold the space and guide us through the session. The conversation will be sparked with Vho-Mphatheleni Makaulule’ vioice, who is an environmental activist, defender of sacred sites, and researcher in the transfer of indigenous knowledge to future generations.
The Gathering will invite everyone to join the Family Table with a selection of indigenous food creations by Chef Noni. Our invited DJ, Zviko, will contribute a sonic vinyl experience, weaving together sounds and memories to awaken nostalgia and inspire conversation.

We look forward to welcoming everyone into this circle and hearing the stories you carry.

We are also inviting you to bring and share a dish that best encapsulates and sparks your memory. (Not a must)

Bios

  • Vho-Mphatheleni Makaulule (Mphathe) is an environmental activist and defender of sacred sites, and a researcher in the transfer of indigenous knowledge to future generations. She is a founder and executive director of the Dzomo la Mupo where she facilitates indigenous knowledge systems dialogues for the interaction on issues of environmental injustices. For more than 35 years, she has been working with the Venda elders, her libraries of knowledge, to transfer indigenous knowledge to the younger generation, particularly the Makhadzi (women) of the communities.

  • Ntombekhaya is a storyteller, strategist and cultural heritage practitioner who connects people, insight, story and place to uncover what matters and turn it into meaningful action. She is the founder and owner of Nkosazana Honey, a social enterprise working with storytelling and strengthening praxis; and co-founder of Igquba la Phakade, an NGO focused on cultural heritage and memory keeping.

  • Zviko is a Johannesburg-based researcher, archivist, DJ, and sonic curator whose practice approaches music as a living archive through which memory, knowledge, and culture continue to be carried across generations.

    Working across both vinyl and digital formats, she traces the lineages of African and diasporic music, honoring recordings as living inheritances and epistemic vessels through which communities remember, relate, and imagine. Her listening pilgrimages, spanning intimate gatherings, cultural spaces, and international festival stages, are intuitively guided journeys that invite audiences into acts of communing, re-membering, and collective presence.

  • Chef Noni is a Mother, a Healer, a Teacher, a Creative, an indigenous Food Activist and culinary creative. Her Fire Food Experience revives ancient rituals and promotes healing through food. Chef Noni aims to reconnect food and its people, rekindling kinship between our people and the land through unorthodox (Forgotten) culinary food experiences, storytelling and food rituals. She champions sustainability and wellness inspired by the wisdom of the ancients.