Eat healthy, think wise!

This can be a complimentary treat for all the foodies to understand more about food as Khoj International Artists’ Association brings an exhibition called InContext: public.art.ecology- Food Edition III. The show  will display the works created by artists from all over.The participating artists are Ravi Agarwal, Leone Contini (Italy), Rabya Naseer and Hurmat-ul-Ain (Pakistan), Mona Gandhi, Simran Chopra, Srishti Lakhera and Suvani Suri.

Khoj is curating the third edition of the programme that  conceives to overlap with the commencement of a separate but related year long urban-farming initiative. The artists-in-residence are researching issues around food sustainability, food cycles (including growing, farming, harvesting, producing, circulating and distributing) and agriculture in both urban and peri-urban settings in and around Delhi. Simultaneously, the residency is also developing additional conversations around other food-related issues, such as the politics of food and food as an artistic medium.

Agarwal, says about his work titled Desire - Denial- Deprivation, 'Food at its best, is deeply sensual. It unleashes an explosion of desires. Like sex it is deeply encoded into our evolutionary DNA. It is livelihood, mega industry, identity, culture, economics, policy, politics, violence, deforestation, religion and the craving for happiness. 

It is ubiquitous to our lives. I am interested in exploring the idea of a voluntary denial of food (for example fasting) as well as the involuntary deprivation caused by its absence or a lack of access to it. Apart from this, I am also exploring ideas of how food has conceptually been thought in anthropology and philosophy. Through photos and videos I am documenting multiple food-scapes for this residency, which govern food including farms, markets, shops/ stalls and food courts.

Pakistani artists Rabbya Naseer & Hurmat ul Ain commented on their work, 'Our collaboration plays at the notion of duality and similarity by building situations of exchange, while raising questions of identity and non-identity. Food and tea serve as a backdrop for staging cultural and political dialogue pertinent to the histoy of the subcontinent.’