Dalit artist’s Come Eat With Me comes to Arts House

Sri Vamsi Matta brings his immersive performance Come Eat With Me to Arts House, North Melbourne, on October 31, exploring caste, food and memory through a shared meal.

Come Eat With Me is an immersive theatre performance by Bangalore-based Dalit artist Sri Vamsi Matta. It explores the intersection of caste, food and memory through storytelling and a shared meal.

Through Dalit stories, histories and everyday resistance, Come Eat With Me invites audiences on a sensory and emotional journey that unpacks themes of oppression and solidarity, grief and joy and the resilience of oppressed caste communities.

“Much of the art made about caste is filtered through an oppressor’s lens, often reducing our stories to pity or pain. My work resists that,” Vamsi said.

Intimate and participatory, this performance is rooted in lived experience and collective memory. The performance transforms the act of inter- and intra-communal eating – a practice often shaped by caste hierarchies – into a space for reflection, connection and community building.

Vamsi is a Bangalore-based interdisciplinary theatre artist whose work is deeply informed by his Dalit identity, experiences, and the socio-political context of his location.

As a member of a community historically marginalised and labelled “untouchable” within the Hindu caste system, Vamsi critically engages with oppressive structures and narratives affecting his community.

Through food, performance and shared experience, I aim to contribute to the anti-caste and Ambedkarite movements, expanding their narratives across time and space, from mythology to the present, Vamsi said.

His recent notable project, Come Eat with Me, is a critically acclaimed performance piece that examines the intricate and often fraught relationship between caste and food. Through the shared act of cooking Dalit cuisine, Vamsi interweaves personal storytelling to challenge caste-based stigma and prejudice.

According to Vamsi, his work is about building community, reclaiming visibility and creating spaces where their lives and imaginations are central.

Vamsi co-founded OffStream, a Bangalore-based arts collective supporting artists with an anti-caste lens and building community around anti-caste histories and imaginations.

He also co-founded Perishable Goods Collective, a transdisciplinary artist collective using food and art to challenge caste oppression and reclaim marginalised cultural narratives.

Come Eat With Me will run at Arts House in North Melbourne from October 31 to November 1. •