Artistic thought to food

A prototype of a shopping mall where one can make endless choices, a kitchen spread over five levels connected with plastic pipes to transfer food items, a water purification tank that purifies water in an interesting way, steel tiffin boxes packed with digital audio stories about food and much more is a part of the multi-disciplinary art show ‘In Context:public.art.ecology: Food Edition II’. The unique exhibition at Khoj Studios, Khirkee Extension explores the role of food through interactive art and installations.

Presented by Khoj International Artists’ Association, the exhibition has works by seven artists – Agat Sharma (India), Ambica Joshi (India), Andre Wakko (Berlin), Mia Morikawa (USA), Catherine Mcmahon (New York), Lipika Bansal (India) and Rainer Prohaska (Austria).

28-year-old, Jaipur based Agat Sharma and 25-year-old, Udaipur-based Ambica Joshi have come up with ‘Edible Ontologies’. “The installation provides a complete retail experience to a viewer. It has hundreds of bottles with edible products like marmalades, cookies, candies etc that highlight the complex process of shopping and eating.”

On the other hand, 34-year-old Lipika’s installation titled ‘Chatpati Stories’, has seven steel tiffin boxes that store photographs and digital audio stories of food recipes made by young women of Khirki village. “We have used creative research methodologies such as digital storytelling and mobile mapping, to disclose the themes of cultural food identities from various perspectives. It highlights the passion for local urban edibles,” says Lipika.

The most ambitious work, perhaps, belongs to the team of 29-year-old Andre Wakko (from Germany) and Mia Morikawa (from Japan) who have worked together for their project titled ‘Aqua de beber’. The installation is a room-sized water-purifying tank fitted with sound sensors which uses tap water, filter it and then purify it. The next step is to pass it through various crystals collected from Delhi and finally use it as drinking water. “The sound sensors will create music for the ears, just like the music of flowing water.

Moreover, it’s all in a loop. So not a drop of water will go waste,” says Wakko. “The idea is to talk about about recycling of water and excessive water consumption,” he adds on.
Another important work belongs to 47-year-old Austrian artist Rainer Prohaska who blurs the line between performance and installation in his work titled ‘Spices? An interactive cooking performance’. Around 10 cooking stations will be spread over the five levels of Khoj building with each station being interconnected with plastics pipe that allow people to pass on the raw material from each station. “The idea is to make people communicate about food without much talking,” says Rainer.
DHNS