FOODWAYS
Group Exhibition
Curator Zoe Chan
Richmond Art Gallery
October 19 – December 31, 2024
Mother’s Cupboard
Paul Wong, 2019
9 ink jet prints (24″ x 36″)
Food and its diverse associated techniques, histories, and social interactions serve up a bottomless source of inspiration for artists. Indeed, food-related practices share significant parallels with art. As art historian Luce Giard compellingly argues in her essay “The Nourishing Arts,” the domestic processing of food is “a domain where tradition and innovation matter equally,” demanding “as much intelligence, imagination, and memory as those traditionally held as superior, such as music or weaving.”
Unsurprisingly then, artists continue to delve into this rich subject matter. Showcasing artworks primarily from the 2010s to the present, FOODWAYS focuses on a diverse selection of artists who explore food and food cultures, addressing a wide range of questions regarding cultural identity, personal narratives, colonialist histories, community, and the transmission of knowledge. These layered artworks are often intersectional and embodied in nature, highlighting how ethnicity, culture, kinship, socioeconomic status, geography, and colonialist histories percolate through practices linked to food and food culture.
“Paul Wong honours the skills, knowledge, and frugality of his mother Suk-Fong by documenting her collection of Chinese herbs , medicinal ingredients, and handmade tinctures that preserved in recycled jars. The jars still bare the logo’s of inexpensive, well-known North American brands like Classico, Miracle Whip, Nabob and Taster’s Choice, over which she affixed her own handwritten labels identifying the contents and the date. Wong elevates the jars by displaying them in spacious confiqurations against brightly lit, white backdrops , worthy of glossy advertisements for luxury goods. Printed in regal large scale, the jars emanate a luminous, almost holy aura. This tribute to Wong’s mother who arrived in Canada in 1950 and died in 2017, serves equally as an homage to a generation of Chinese women who built new lives and raised families in the face of racism, limited financial means, and language barriers, among other issues.” – Zoe Chan, Curator: Foodways, Richmond Art Gallery
