15th of June 2019
@ wooden seating platforms,
Weichselplatz Berlin-Neukölln,
3-10pm
with works and contributions by:
Elia Nurvista & Imelda Mandala
Uli Westphal
Stephan Zandt
Josh Zielinski
In recent years, it seems that the pleasure and the pace of consumption of food as well as the processing of knowledge and information via the internet are drastically shortened by different accelerated social and economical developments in the context of mass culture on a global scale. A slow digestion of sensorial and intellectual information gets less and less important in present societies with their various lifestyle, consumer and eating habits causing an unhealthy flattening of experience and knowledge dimensions.
By using particular urban furniture in the public space that will be transformed into a table-like situation four invited artists and theorist take this thesis as a starting point and present their site specific works and ideas about food culture and its political, environmental and social issues in regard to consumerism and knowledge creation in nowadays globalised and digitalised world. The audience is invited to actively join the table.
Elia Nurvista is an artist whose practice focuses on food production and distribution and its broader social and historical implications. Food in various forms — from the planting of crops, to the act of eating and the sharing of recipes — are Nurvista’s entry point to explore issues of economics, labour, politics, culture and gender.
Imelda Mandala, a Jakarta born, has been cooking for the past 4 years to literally feed herself since moving to her new hometown, Potsdam. From Frikadelle to perkedel, schmoren to Semur, cuisine knows no border.
Uli Westphal's work deals with the way humans perceive, depict and transform the natural world. In recent years he has focused on the portrayal and transformation of nature through the food industries. On one side he studies our detachment from the sources of our food that results from the industrialization, globalization and concentration of agriculture and the food market. A key site for this investigation is the supermarket, the way food and agriculture is portrayed here, the psychological mechanisms and marketing schemes that are used to sell food. On the other side he studies the hidden biodiversity in agriculture, the incredible spectrum of shapes, colors and flavors of thousands of crop varieties and species that are excluded from the market due to trade regulations and cosmetic standards, and which are replaced by just a few industrial cultivars.
Stephan Zandt is postdoc and cultural theorist at the Department of Cultural History and Theory, Humboldt-University of Berlin. He studied Comparative Studies in Cultures and Religions and Cultural History and Theory in Marburg and Berlin. In his work Stephan deals with the connection between appetite, taste and cultural modes of subjectification in the context of cosmopolitanism and colonialism. His further research interests include human-animal studies, culture-historical aesthetics and the anthropology of the senses.
Josh Zielinski explores in his artistic practice concepts related to sculpture. By using various materials he imitates everyday as well as not commonplace objects and examines at this the methods of production and the creation of value.
