Edible, 2015 Amsterdam, NL

I began this project thinking about how I could connect a work to the study of global health in a way that had not been thought of before. I wanted to change the way people perceive food in a way that would make them second guess what they were seeing as if they had not previously encountered it. Part of my studies focus on how people connect with one another through cultural overlap, but also looks at the disconnect of interactions from cultural difference. The idea of altering a person’s perception of “ordinary” food came from my experience in the first few weeks living in Amsterdam. Going grocery shopping seems like a menial, ordinary activity when one is accustom to the variety offered with little variation from store to store. However, there is a great range of difference in the products sold in grocery stores across national borders. My aim is to bring that same feeling of uneasiness and confusion I felt when confronted with aisles of unfamiliar food to the audience of this project.
The food is not meant to look edible but to produce a feeling of discomfort. The six images are presented with the prints the size of place mats while using cellophane as a table cloth to distort the view of the photos on the non-traditional dinner table.