We are what we eat

We are what we eat is a long-term project that uses site-specific found food inside plastic bags and a combination of multiple art mediums to investigate the habitat of food and its relation to the culture of using plastic bags as containers in contemporary China to explore cultural connotations, personal memories and identities.

In China I often encounter people carrying local food and drinks in see-through plastic bags. Sometimes the shape and form of the food looks completely abstract. I feel shocked and provoked by what I see. This factor has raised my interest in how food has been presented and consumed and how it could be interpreted in different cultural contexts. This project looks specifically at the interrelationship between food and plastic bags and the role photography has played in how we perceive and consume food. I explore ways of photographing food through scanography and studio lighting to challenge the viewer’s perception on how food is presented and interpreted in contemporary mass media. Scanography turns 3-D food materials into unsettling, abstracted 2-D images that disrupt the aesthetic beauty of a 'feast for the eye' and raises questions around preconceived knowledges of food both culturally and socially. This project emphasises that site-specific food can reflect social attitudes around food and further, it raises important questions on how we should look at food’s relationship to the ubiquitous nature of plastic. By refusing the carefully rendered compositions found in traditional food photography, this project enables a discussion of how food inside plastic bags is considered an ephemeral art material and can be transferred into 2-D images to engage a contemporary association with gastronomy, performative art and social and cultural discourses.

We are what we eat 01, 2021  

photography  

2970 x 2100 mm

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We are what we eat 02, 2021  

photography  

2970 x 2100 mm

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We are what we eat 03, 2021  

photography  

2970 x 2100 mm

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We are what we eat 04, 2020  

photography  

2970 x 2100 mm

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We are what we eat 05, 2020

photography  

2970 x 2100 mm

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We are what we eat 06, 2021  

photography  

2970 x 2100 mm

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We are what we eat 07, 2021  

photography  

2970 x 2100 mm

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We are what we eat 08, 2021  

photography  

2970 x 2100 mm

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