Performative tasting and guided meditation. In collaboration with Roland van Dierendonck. As performed at TTT Malta 2023.
Chilli Pepper Pleasure, created in collaboration with Roland van Dierendonck, is a performative tasting and guided meditation that explores the complex relationship between pain and pleasure in consuming capsaicin. Participants are seated in a circle, each receiving a plate with three totopos and three chilli pepper sauces of increasing intensity: Salsa Verde, chipotle, and habanero, drawn from ancient Mexica and Maya culinary traditions.
The performance subverts the macho trope of enduring spiciness as a show of strength, proposing instead a meditative, non-judgmental encounter with capsaicin as a source of personal enjoyment. Through a guided meditation, participants narrow their attention inward toward the mouth, becoming aware of sensation without the reflex to resist it. Spiciness is not a taste: capsaicin activates the same receptors as heat and pain, tricking the brain into perceiving high temperatures. The subsequent release of endorphins is what transforms pain into pleasure. Each participant is invited to find their own sweet spot within that feedback loop.
Chilli peppers have been cultivated and consumed in Mesoamerica for over 8,000 years, serving not only as food but as medicine, currency, and ceremonial substance. The performance brings that deep history into the present through an embodied, aware act of eating, proposing that food literacy and cultural heritage are inseparable.
Technical card: Chilli Pepper Pleasure 2022 Performative tasting and guided meditation In collaboration with Roland van Dierendonck (NL)
Performances: Pepper, Plate, Magic, Mediamatic, Amsterdam, NL, June 2022
Vleeshal, Middelburg, NL, July 2022
Taboo Transgression Transcendence (TTT) conference, Malta, September 2023
Pérez Bobadilla, M., & Van Dierendonck, R. (2023). Chilli Pepper Pleasure: Artistic research of biochemical and cultural dimensions of enjoyment, pain and food. In Taboo Transgression Transcendence in Art & Science 2023 Interdisciplinary Conference Proceedings. TTT Conference
Photography: Alexandra Lechin