Organised by ARIAS x UNSEEN
Date: September 2019
Location: SPUI25, Amsterdam
A discussion on image-making as artistic research and a critical tool in a time of food ignorance and ecological imbalance. Large scale agriculture that feasts on exhausted land, plants and animal life make dropping food items into the shopping basket a difficult task. Rarely seasonal, often mass produced and shining in plastic, neatly stacked for your convenience - huge arrays of food from across the globe are readily available in your local supermarket at the cost of ecological imbalance. This ethical conundrum forces people to question: what is it that we should be eating? One of the most important daily decisions that affects some of the biggest issues of today - from climate change, to workers rights and public health.
At the front line of these cultural narratives, artists find themselves in a vortex of web 2.0 social and political struggle. Waves of ‘food consciousness’ are increasingly cropping up in cities like Amsterdam, where vegan foods are high in demand, twenty different alternatives to milk are available, and Instagram floods our smartphones with conscious hashtags. But what does this mean in a global food context? The neoliberal ideology is changing consumer behaviour, and amid this epoch of food consciousness, how does image-making grasp and push this momentum to be a more complex and deeper question than what food we should eat. Which avenue does artistic practice take when the marginal starts to become mainstream? Can artistic practice begin to weave and entangle ecological balance for all species?
Planting the way in the series ‘The United Soya Republic’ Jordi Ruiz Cirera pointed an anthropological lens at the landscape and the socio-economic fabric, brought about by intensive farming and exportation of the soya crop in Argentina and Paraguay; regions at the epicentre of the global food economy. Artist Sheng-Wen Lo entered the realm of moving-image and gamification through the research projects ‘TUNA’ and ‘MELK’. Through in-depth research processes that are both scientific and artistic, Lo found playful ways of digital storytelling that questioned the generic conventions of the human - non-human animal relation and how this is often taken for granted.
With respect to human-kind’s complex entanglement with the world ‘For Your Convenience’ asked how practices and processes of creation break apathy and reintegrate humans into the planet’s natural ecosystem. During this discussion, Ruiz Cirera and Lo shared with the audience their creative processes, whilst Alireza Abbasy and Alena Alexandrova gave an attentive ear to respond and ask questions about image making as a critical research tool. Art Historian and concerned foodie Saba Askary moderated the panel. Together they unpacked the complexities and methodologies - the trials and tribulations - that visual artists have within present geography and time.
A discussion on image-making as artistic research and a critical tool in a time of food ignorance and ecological imbalance. The guest speakers were documentary photographer Jordi Ruiz Cirera, artist Sheng-Wen Lo, curator and cultural theorist Alena Alexandrova, and photographer, art critic Alireza Abbasy from Sarmad Magazine. The discussion was moderated by art historian and Unseen Media Manager Saba Askary.
