Jochi Melero

Jochi Melero

Jochi Melero, photographer and cook, is recognised for a body of work that began in the 1970s, marked by iconic portraits of figures such as Benicio Del Toro and Silvio Rodríguez, and a singular sensitivity to capturing the world around him. Also known as the soup magician, he brings to Transmigração a speculative culinary practice rooted in Afro-Caribbean traditions, botany, and domestic alchemy. In this project, one of his cauldrons has been transformed into a pinhole camera with which he captured images that oscillate between the ritual and the sensorial; another cauldron will be activated through the preparation of Sopa de rumores [Soup of Rumours], a culinary spell that will enchant the object and turn it into a new piece. In this way, image, nourishment, and object become entangled in an affective archaeology where the material, the spiritual, and the symbolic coexist in a single gesture.