To complement the exhibition and residencies that forms part of the first season of The Politics of Food, Delfina Foundation hosts a series of events including lunchtime talks and dinner discussions; performances around cooking and eating; and film and video screenings.
Programme
Uncontrolled Denominations with Leone Contini
Wednesday, 22 January 2014
16:00: Dumpling-making workshop. 19:00 Performance-lecture, tea, conversation, tasting.
Venue: Delfina Foundation
Guest artist Leone Contini makes art that plumbs the ironies and predicaments of Prato, Tuscany — one of the most stereotyped environs in contemporary Europe — where one-fifth of the population are factory workers from Zhejiang, China. These Chinese migrants have transformed local agriculture amid precarious conditions, de-controlling — and revitalizing — the idea of Tuscany. Contini will present recent work on displacement, transcultural horticulture, and imagining communities, as well as emblematic foodstuffs: Carmignano Jiaozi, an Italian ravioli with Chinese fillings, Hundred Flowers Tea, a Florentine Maoist concoction from the 1960s, and Pang Da Hai, a restorative tea favored by Zhejiangese in Prato.
Subtleties and Warnings: Power and the Edible Grotesque with Candice Lin
Wednesday, 29 January 2014, 19:00
Venue: Delfina Foundation
Resident artist Candice Lin’s ten-course banquet will present a contemporary take on the medieval edible sculptures known as subtleties — fantastical, bizarre, or illusionistic foods — and warnings, a specific kind of sugar-based subtlety.
In the middle ages, kings would commission elaborate tableaus to impress and intimidate allies, evoking wonder, awe, disgust, and fear through the ingenious dishes served: mythical beasts — unicorns, cockentrice, and other chimera, fashioned by sewing various animals together; pastries sculpted into ships, castles, and stags; edible foods made to appear rotten and cooked foods made to appear raw; and sugar figurines in the shape of political enemies.
Drawing on Tudor courts, vernacular Chinese cookery, and books and films including Satyricon, The Baron in the Trees, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Lin will stage a feast of discrepant bodies, dysmorphic forms, and warnings — all of them good to eat.
Japan Syndrome with Tadasu Takamine and Jonathan Watkins (Director, Ikon Gallery)
Friday, 7 February 2014, 18:30
Venue: Delfina Foundation
In The Politics of Food exhibition, Takamine presents Japan Syndrome, a three-part performative video work that reflects on the social consequences of the catastrophic nuclear meltdown at Fukushima. It is not the first time that the artist has tackled this subject. His exhibition project Cool Japan (2012) made a reference to the campaign for marketing Japan that was launched in 2011. In light of the ecological effects of the reactor catastrophe in Fukushima, promoting qualities such as the coolness or serenity of the Japanese people illustrates the political efforts to utilise the population within the framework of the image campaign.
Takamine will be in conversation with curator Jonathan Watkins (Director, Ikon Gallery) about Japan Syndrome and other works that treat the theme of food politics, including Kimura-San (2004), which deals with the theme/subject of the possibilities for individual self-determination. The video installation circles around a victim of the Morinaga scandal, in which 138 infants died from milk products poisoned with arsenic in the 1950s; Mr. Kimura, who no longer has any more control over his body and cannot speak. The artist, who was among a group of people responsible for caring for him for five years, examines the sexual life of Mr. Kimura in his video, and in doing so poses general questions about the sexuality of disabled individuals as well as how they are depicted and addressed.
Exhibition Tour
Saturday, 8 February 2014, 11:00-12:00
Venue: Delfina Foundation
This tour is an introductory level event to introduce the artists and concept of The Politics of Food exhibition, led by participating artists Asuncion Molinos Gordo, Gayle Chong Kwan, Asunción Molinos Gordo, Senam Okudzeto, Zineb Sedira, Tadasu Takamine and Raed Yassin.
The Future of Food with Michael Eisen, Tristram Stewart and Politics of Food residents
8 February 2014, 15:00
Venue: Delfina Foundation
A discussion of eventualities, possibilities, and destabilizations in the supply and distribution of food, featuring The Politics of Food residents as well as:
Tristram Stuart, author of Bloodless Revolution: A Cultural History of Vegetarianism and Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal, founder of Feeding the 5000 and co-founder of The Pig Idea.
Michael Eisen, professor of genetics, genomics, and development at the University of California, Berkeley, co-founder of the Public Library of Science, an open-access scholarly publishing venture, and a proponent of new plant-based ‘meats’.
Tamara Ben-Ari, a researcher at the Institute National de la Recherche Agronomique in Paris, has worked on the effects of climate on human-borne disease in China and the United States. Her current work considers the interaction of climate change and food supply and demand.
This is Not Cheese, It’s Dynamite with William Oglethorpe and STANDART THINKING
Tuesday, 11 February 2014, 08:00-12:00
Venue: Kappacasein Dairy, Bermondsey, Southeast London
A cheesemaking workshop and tasting with philosopher and cheesemaker William Oglethorpe, organised in conjunction with Javier Rodriguez and Lise Hovesen, aka STANDART THINKING, who are UK Associates in The Politics of Food.
The Flamboyant Table: Rijsttafel Revisited with Elia Nurvista
Tuesday, 18 February 2014, 19:00
Venue: Delfina Foundation
Resident artist Elia Nurvista will present a postcolonial take on the Rijsttafel — a sprawling banquet table featuring dozens of dishes that collectively performed the bounty of Dutch rule in Indonesia — in conjunction with critic and curator Nat Muller.
Survival of the Fullest: Feeding and Sharing in Crisis Times
Monday, 24 February 2014, 19:00
Venue: Delfina Foundation
Inspired by the flooding that has swept the south of England, together with ongoing environmental and economic crises affecting the global food chain, critics Oliver Basciano and Hettie Judah and artists Dan Coopey and Maria Georgoula present a simple meal of lamb and pudding to encourage a more personal dialogue with the things we eat.
Delfina Foundation at Art14
Dates: 28 February to 2 March 2014
Venue: Olympia Grand, Hammersmith Road, London.
This year Delfina Foundation will present two works by current artist-in-residence Gayle Chong Kwan. Wastescape (2012) is a vast collection of plastic bottles and food packaging items, predominantly discarded or recycled, crafted into an immersive installation.
What Tongues? with Raed Yassin and Beate Schüler
1–2 March 2014
Venue: Delfina Foundation
World premiere! An intimate, seductive, disappointing participatory performance on food featuring resident Raed Yassin and Beate Schüler, a curator, dramaturge, and culture manager based in Cologne.
Climate Change and the Future of Food with Tamara Ben Ari
Friday, 14 March 2014, 18.00
Venue: Delfina Foundation
The Delfina Foundation’s very first scientist-in-residence presents an overview of the cascading effects of climate change on food production — and the effects of food production on climate change.
Global Agronomy — the science and technology of using plants for food, feed, fiber, and fuel — attempts to model the present and future of agriculture at a planetary scale, with special concern for environmental impacts and food security.
We Are What We Eat: Approaching Cannibalism with Mark Pilkington, Vanessa Hodkginson, and Amira Ghazalla
Wednesday, 26 March 2014, 19:30 (Doors 19:00)
Venue: The Horse Hospital
A very special evening, at the limit of good taste: three approaches to the cultural politics of cannibalism, curated by Michael C. Vazquez.
Writer-musician-filmmaker-impressario Mark Pilkington provides an annotated tour of cannibalist horror film trailers.
Artist Vanessa Hodkginson presents “Going Native,” an original performance.
Actress and artist Amira Ghazalla performs “Murder Pudding,” an interpretive history of Egypt’s favorite and only dessert whose name and appearance is literally revenge served cold.
Nothing Works As Designed with Alessandra Saviotti
Thursday, 27 March 2014, 17:00
Venue: Delfina Foundation
Curator and artist Alessandra Saviotti presents a selection of agri-cultural projects developed together with her collective Aspra.mente from 2006 through today, including ‘Illegal Kitchen’, a recent intervention at a residency program in collaboration with Vijai Patchineelam.
Ordinary Food with Asunción Molinos Gordo
Friday, 28 March 2014, 19:00
Venue: Delfina Foundation
A meal-performance with resident artist Asunción Molinos Gordo exploring the current economy that revolves around the exchange of this vital good while presenting a series of dishes that have wheat as their main ingredient: gazpacho, couscous, pastries, cocas mallorquinas, and torrijas… among others.
Politics of Food Conference at SOAS, University of London
Venue: Khalili Lecture Theatre, Philips Building, SOAS, University of London
Date: Sunday, 30 March 2014
A symposium on art, food, cultural memory, and the culinary turn. Co-presented with the Food Studies Centre, SOAS.
A Living Thing, A Dying Thing: Artisanal Cheese and the Politics of Taste, a dinner-tasting with Harry G. West
Venue: Delfina Foundation
Date: Wednesday 2 April, 2014, 18.30
Join us for a tasting of international artisanal cheeses selected and introduced by Harry G. West, director of the Food Studies Centre at SOAS, University of London. Professor West will consider these tastes in their cultural and political contexts, drawing upon his ethnographic research over the past decade among artisan cheese makers across Europe and beyond.
The tasting will be followed by a simple dinner featuring cured meats, salads, bread, wine… and cheese.
The Butcher of Belgravia: An Evening with Michael Rakowitz
Friday, 4 April 2014, 19:00
Venue: Delfina Foundation
Join us and Michael Rakowitz for dinner.
Let it not be said they were naively, fearfully, simply, just making art… — Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri, with friends
Dates: 27 February–29 March 2014
Venue: The Showroom
“It is a time when all of these forms and their processual reproduction (within an ever more biocidal capitalist political-economy) not only contribute to the proliferation of devastation and dispossession, but more precisely become an alibi, lubricant, or liturgy for it.”
Maryam Jafri: Mouthfeel
Venue: Gasworks, 155 Vauxhall Street, London SE11 5RH
Dates: 21/3/14 – 18/5/14
Gasworks presents Mouthfeel, the first solo exhibition in London by Maryam Jafri, who is currently in residence at Delfina Foundation as part of The Politics of Food. Comprising the newly commissioned short film Mouthfeel and a new photo-text work entitled Product Recall: An Index of Innovation (both 2014), the exhibition explores the politics underpinning the industrial production of food, connecting themes as diverse as “big food”, flavour enhancement technology and overconsumption.
Maryam Jafri and T.J. Demos In Conversation at Gasworks
Tuesday 15 April 2014, 19:00
Venue: Gasworks
Politics of Food resident Maryam Jafri discusses her exhibition Mouthfeel and her larger practice with T.J. Demos, critic and Reader in the Department of Art History, University College London.