A Consumed Past Ensuring a Tasty Future

 Through this exploration of a deeply personal yet universally relatable subject I respond at the intersection of personal narratives and social criticism in the landscape of contemporary art. By carefully examining my own compulsions, I now invite the audience to confront the irrationality within their own lives, creating a space for shared contemplation and understanding, fostering a collective consciousness about the behaviour that may appear irrational at first glance.

The documentation of every meal consumed over the span of six years! What began as an endeavour to capture the aesthetic allure and ephemeral nature of food turned into a ritualistic behaviour and an obsession.

While trying to find an answer to why am I doing this, I came across artists and writers who have made an attempt at immortalising the experiences in life which helped me in this self-discovery process. I drew parallels with Marcel Proust's "Swann's Way," where the protagonist's experience with a madeleine triggers a plethora of autobiographical memories. My own journey of taking photographs suggests the power of seemingly mundane activities to evoke complex emotions and reflections. It was interesting how the metaphorical description of a madeline used as an act of capturing the moment, a multisensory experience unlocks a sense of introspection that goes beyond the surface-level appreciation of it.

Looking at Dean Baldwin’s exhibition “Attempt at an Inventory” which engages with the themes of consumption and self-documentation, I started searching for a metaphorical way of observing personalities through a person’s eating habits. Another aspect that came to my attention was how food is often symbolic of passing of time and shortness of life. I looked into the contemporary concerns surrounding food security and biodiversity, drawing inspiration from Michael Hopkin's article "Frozen Futures." The 'Doomsday Vault' buried in the Arctic ice, intended to safeguard the world's seeds”, made me question the need of preserving the present day diversity.

This journey of self-awareness provided me some insights to the initial question: Why was I compelled to engage in this repetitive act of taking photographs? Was it a mere appreciation for the aesthetic qualities of food, or did it delve into some deeper psychological phenomena? To answer this, I started creating a series of visuals that narrate my obsessive-compulsive thoughts behind the need of capturing that specific moment, a series of which took the form of the narrative artefact.

While illustrating my experiences I was inspired by the literary explorations of food in John Knechtel's "Food". Knechtel's work delves into the cultural, historical, and philosophical dimensions of food, resonating with my own journey to transform the simple act of documenting meals into a reflective dialogue on human rituals.

In conclusion, my work positions itself within contemporary art practice by addressing the need of self-reflection through a narrative built from personal thoughts behind capturing simple synesthetic experiences of our daily lives.

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Reference List

• Hopkin, Michael, ‘Frozen Futures: The “Doomsday Vault” Buried in the Arctic Ice Will Provide a Backup for the World’s Seeds. But More Needs to Be Done to Safeguard Food Diversity’, Nature, 452.7186 (2008), 404–6

  
  

• Knechtel, J. (2008) Food. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

  
  

• Adler, Dan, ‘Dean Baldwin’, Artforum, 2007  [accessed 24 January 2024]

  
  

• Proust, M. (1966) Swann’s Way. Chatto & Windus.