Nourrir la nostalgie

This exhibition presents works by Madison Strizic, Isabela Markus Nafarrate, Sacha Pérez del Solar, Miao, Sam Lee, Snack Witch Joni Cheung and Armando Cuspinera as an imagined home. Here, the ingredients of nostalgic and diasporic dishes are also materials for artwork. The table is set using practices of care and hospitality that become critical gestures of resistance. And tensions over the emotional and political power of food are on the menu. By questioning the effects of immigration, globalization and the food industry, the works intended for this recipe pose the question: how do these consumer goods, which have become cultural markers, nourish or exploit nostalgia?

To nourish nostalgia, soothe a heart (and belly) in diaspora, revive a craving memory, please follow these directions, in no particular order:

Invite what reconnects you with what you thought was lost, far away. Whatever transports you to memories of childhood (or adulthood), however familiar and personal, reveals rather deep ties nurtured by the collective. You'll find these guests in grocery stores, youtube tutorials, the dining room, the kitchen, photo albums, offerings from the familiar garden and even in a gallery. For the artists, it's beans, avocados, SPAM, tea for the ancestors, challah, clementines, steak on a wood plank.

Play the game the artists propose. Through the senses and offerings, they invite you to participate, contribute and feed (from) the works present here. Eat Miao's beans and Joni's sweets, share a cup of tea on Madison's table, and peel a clementine offered by Armando. Embark on visits to Asian supermarkets by Sam, a hangry hallucination by Sacha, an exploration of identity by Isabela.

Cultivate a critical stance toward food, even food that feeds your heart. Think about imported foods and how they embody a misplaced nostalgia: that of a "home" lost, idealized or recomposed here in Canada. This creates a tension when we consider the consequences of agricultural exploitation, the export and trafficking of goods, the artificial and harmful manipulation of food, and so on. Mix these ingredients with intention and let them marinate.

Share abundance. Consider hospitality as a means of resisting cultural erasure and cultivating forms of intentional community. The generosity that surrounds a dining table, or a shared recipe, is passed from generation to generation, from potluck to potluck across cultures and ancestral knowledge. Accompany your nostalgia with a clementine jam, if you wish.