Delfina Foundation, Stirring the Pot of Story: Food, History, Memory, 2015. Photos: Sylvain Deleu.
Spring 2015
Sex, Diet and Disaster
From F. T. Marinetti’s Manifesto of Futurist Cookery to Gordon Matta-Clark’s conceptual restaurant to Michael Rakowitz’s Enemy Kitchen, artists have long employed food within their creative process and practice. In recent years, a host of cultural practitioners has been interrogating relationships between food and environmental, economic and social concerns, as well as notions of cooking and eating as performative acts and of dishes, recipes, and cookbooks as oft-contested markers of cultural memory.
Hospitality and conviviality are at the heart of Delfina Foundation. Founded in 1988 as the Delfina Studio Trust, which later became Delfina Foundation in 2007, the organisation has a long history in providing a “home” for artists to explore ideas, to engage in cross-cultural dialogue and to explore opportunities for artistic experimentation. Through our residency and public programme, Delfina Foundation brings together artists, curators and critics from around the world to explore how artistic strategies have and can be used to address wide-ranging issues, in this case relating to food, agriculture, and the environment.
This programme will unfold over the course of four years at Delfina Foundation with one season each year devoted to The Politics of Food. In January 2014 the first iteration of this programme curated in collaboration with Michael Vazquez brought together 41 artists, activists, anthropologists, agronomists, chefs, curators, scientists and writers from 15 countries to investigate the global politics and ethics of food production, distribution and consumption.
In the spring of 2015, curated in collaboration with Nat Muller, Delfina Foundation will launch our next season of The Politics of Food. This season will focus on the connections between sex, diet, disasters and food in both historical and contemporary contexts.
Under the heading Sex we wish examine topics ranging from gender and power to the erotics of display and the pleasures of eating. Within the framework of Diet we will explore ideas of ritual and control with particular reference to identity, political policies, religion, fashion and marketing. When considering Disaster we are interested in investigating the impact of international policies, climate change, war, economic crises and natural disasters on food in historical, current or imagined scenarios.
Exhibition
International Residents
UK Associates
Public Programme
PLATFORM
Explore selected outcomes and documentation of the programme.
Credits
The Politics of Food – Season 2 is made possible thanks to the support of Delfina Foundation’s family of individual patrons.
Additional thanks to: Alserkal Avenue, Dubai / Arts Council England / Baibakov Art Projects / Danish Arts Foundation/ Farook Foundation / Goldsmiths, University of London / Malek and Maria Sukkar / Mendes Wood DM / Mohamed & Perihan Bassatne / Instytut Adama Mickiewicza / Office of Cultural and Scientific Affairs of the Embassy of Spain in London / Office for Contemporary Art Norway / Polish Cultural Institute / Sprovieri Gallery / The Mosaic Rooms / Vega Sicilia / We Can’t be There Series