From 24 to 28 November 2025, the students of the Master in Fine Arts took part in an intensive masterclass led by artist Alejandro Chellet.
For five days, the masterclass “Eating the Empire: Performance, Food, and Ecologies of Waste” guided the Master in Fine Arts students through a theoretical, performative, and critical exploration of the relationship between food systems, ecology, consumption, and global capitalism. Through the language of performance art, the workshop offered an opportunity to reflect on how seemingly everyday gestures—eating, sharing, discarding—are deeply political acts shaped by historical dynamics of extraction, accumulation, and inequality.
A critical perspective between art, ecology, and politics
The masterclass positioned performance as an aesthetic strategy, a critical methodology, and an Art/Life ritual of unlearning through which students could reconsider their embodied participation in the systems that shape contemporary life. Concepts such as radical hospitality, artivism, and ecological care guided analytical and experimental work, encouraging students to question dualities such as scarcity/abundance, inclusion/exclusion, host/guest.
Special attention was given to the ways in which performance can challenge contemporary phenomena such as gentrification, countrification, and capitalist overconsumption, generating alternative imaginaries grounded in interdependence and ecological responsibility.
A five-day programme of theory, practice, and observation
The masterclass unfolded through a series of integrated activities designed to expand critical and performative skills:
❯ Theoretical seminars featuring presentations of artists and historical examples, followed by group discussions.
Critical writing exercises to help students articulate personal reflections on the themes addressed.
❯ Physical and performative practices, both individual and collective, to explore group dynamics and bodily engagement.
Public space outings dedicated to observing the urban environment and collecting discarded materials.
❯ A visit to a local restaurant to analyse its social codes, rituals, and relational dynamics.
❯ A hands-on workshop focused on creating costumes and performative objects using repurposed materials, with insights into dramaturgy and score-making.
❯ Performative sharings carried out individually or in groups.
❯ A final critique and feedback session reflecting on the processes and outcomes of the week.
The masterclass became an intense space of research where art, ecology, and political imagination intertwined in the development of new performative practices. Through the encounter with Alejandro Chellet, students were able to experiment with alternative ways of thinking and acting, challenging established structures and opening pathways toward more conscious, critical, and sustainable perspectives.
