FOOD: Bigger than the Plate

FOOD: Bigger than the Plate
Sponsored by BaxterStorey Gallery 39 and North Court
18.05.2019 - 20.10.2019

Food is the most important material in the world.”Marije VogelzangFOOD: Bigger than the Plate will explore how innovativeindividuals, communities and organisationsare radically re-inventing how we grow, distribute and experience food.Taking visitorson a sensory journey through the food cycle,from compost to table,itposesquestionsabouthow the collective choices we make can lead to a more sustainable, just and delicious food future in unexpectedand playful ways.

The exhibition falls at a pivotal time where food and our relationship to itare topics of increasing global interest and debate.Featuring over 70contemporary projects, new commissions and creative collaborations by artists and designers working with chefs, farmers, scientists and local communities, it will be splitinto four sections: ‘Compost’, ‘Farming’,‘Trading’ and ‘Eating’. Taking a fresh, experimental and often provocative perspective, projects will present ideas and alternative food futures from gastronomic experiments to creative interventions in farming,with several exhibits physically growing in the galleryspace.

‘Compost’ will showcase diverse projects that aim to create a more resilient food system by closing the nutrient loop and changing our perception of waste. Daily Dump’s pioneering system for home composting in India uses beautiful handcrafted terracotta pots to challenge the stigma of handling waste, whilst designer Fernando Laposse works with the discarded husks of colourful heirloom corn varieties in Mexico to create a new marquetry material, Totomoxtle, that supports agricultural biodiversity. GroCycle’s Urban Mushroom Farminstallationin the gallery will illustratethe idea of a circular economy by usingwaste coffee grounds, including grounds from the V&A Benugo café,togrowedible Oyster mushrooms. Once fully grown, these will be harvested and taken back into thecafé to be served in selected dishes.

Exploring bold ideas to reinvent our relationships with the landscapes, organisms and people that yield our food, ‘Farming’will look at innovative urban,open-source and social farming projects, as well as exploring how new technologies might change the waywe grow and farm the plants and animals we eat. These include a pedal-powered Bicitractordeveloped by Farming Soul to support small-scale farming, and a working version of MIT’s Food Computer, an open source controlled-environment platform that precisely replicates natural conditions to grow crops in unexpected places. The section will also feature a major new commission by artists Fallen Fruit who will createa bespoke 12-metre squared wallpaper for the museum. This will draw on the V&A’s collections and the horticultural history of the site –which was once an important nursery for fruit trees –to explore the past and contemporary role of fruit in creating shared culture.

‘Trading’ will pose questions about more transparent and diverse ways of buying, selling and transporting food. Early food adverts will shine a light on trading history, whilst contemporary exhibits will bring together projects that make supply chains visible –such as Banana Storyby Björn Steinar Blumenstein and Johanna Seelemann–and initiatives that reconnect consumers and producers in new ways. Company Drinks, a community enterprise in east London that brings people together to pick, process and produce drinks, will have a bar in the gallery serving drinks samples to exhibition visitors.

The pleasure of cooking and eating, and how a meal connects us culturally, socially and politically,will be explored through projects by Ferran Adrià, Michael Rakowitz, Lubaina Himid and Grizedale Arts among others. It will considerthe role of the table,the challenges we face in feeding the world,and thepower of deliciousness, as well as looking at scientific projects, ingredients and recipes which push the boundaries of ingenuity in cooking. Examples include Carolien Niebling’s The Sausage of the Future,and Christina Agapakis and Sissel Tolaas’ Selfmade project,culturing cheese from human bacteriato explore our relationship with the microbial world–promptingquestions about our notions of taste. FOOD will display three Selfmade cheeses‘grown’ from three well-known individualsfor the exhibition, and the V&A will be calling on the public to nominate an individualvia an Instagram Stories poll, launching tomorrow.

This timely exhibition draws on the V&A’s close links with food, including thirty historic objects from the V&A collections –influential early food adverts, illustrations andceramics–providing further context to the exhibition. Built on the site of Brompton Nursery, the V&A housed an early food museum and over 150 years ago opened the world’s first purpose-built museum refreshment rooms. The V&A café, catered by Benugo, remains central to the museum,linking food culture and the visual arts.

Catherine Flood and May Rosenthal Sloan, co-curators of FOOD: Bigger than the Plateat the V&A, said: “Food is one of the most powerful tools through which we shape the world we live in, from how we create society, culture and pleasure to how we determine our relationship with the natural world. In an era of major ecological challenges,fast-changing societies and technological re-invention, now is a crucial moment to ask not just what will we be eating tomorrow, but what kind of food future do we want? What could it look like? And taste like? Today, a wide range of inspiring creative practitioners are addressing these expansive questions. Putting food at the heart of the museum, this exhibition is an exciting opportunity to bring together some of the best of this work to explore food as rich ground for citizenship, subversion and celebration.”