Catherine is one of the organizer for this exhibition, the person behind all the interviews. She is also participating as one of the artist. In this blog, she is contributing a short essay on what eat with  family.

Curatorial essay: Explaining Food + Family + Art

By Catherine Cheok

I like to make a confession here. I was not exactly thrilled with the topic of family and food when I was first invited by Kelvin to participate in this exhibition. Neither topics held much interest to me. I’m not a big fan of family bonding especially. And if I really want to touch on this topic, it is, perhaps, a tad private for me to make a politically correct statement. But the opportunity to helm the seat of a curator, proved too much of a temptation. I eagerly agreed to his invitation and jumped into this stream of whirlwind events.

In the midst of preparation, I have a chance to learn a thing or two about family and food (of course, what else!)… and surprisingly, art. Funny how these three elements can be so different yet share a commonality at the same time.

Food + Family

If one tries to define Asia, food will be one factor that comes to mind immediately. Within the fabric of our diverse Asian cultures, food is a common thread that ties our societies together, and I dare say, a common passion among us as well, no matter how different we may see ourselves from another Asian culture. And this interest may have been sparked early in our childhood when our families prepare a feast for just about any occasions. Food begets immediate family members, which in turn begets the extended family involved; which in turn begets multi-level interactions; which in turn begets bonding, heart-breaks, tales of betrayal, or joy. Whether you like it or not, you walk away from a feast getting more than just the food. A meal can make you happy, or troubled.

So as you can see, food begets family time; or is it that family time begets food? For us, providing food seems to be an expression of love. No, we don’t like to tell you in the face that we love you (“you” here to mean our closed ones, or people we value). We just feed you and hope from the satisfied look on your face, on having a good meal and friendly conversation during the meal, that you appreciate our loving efforts. And from generation to generation, this is perhaps how we say to our family members- “yes, we love you. Please come home for dinner”, or “yes, I know you care for me. By the way, I really miss your cooking!”

Food + Family (+ Art?)

I guess by now, many of you would be asking, “so where does art fit into these?” This was the same question I first approached the theme on ‘Eat With Family’. I guess it was not that difficult to talk about it but to put it down in permanent form? Kelvin and I pretty much let the artists do what they want to do, after all this topic is pretty straight-forward, except, how does it relate to arts?

Okie, let us assume that there is a misconception here. The art here, may just be an instrument to bring about a realization on the commonality we have with one another, or even cross-culturally (we have three foreign artists involved in this project). Presenting this theme can be a simple affair, telling the story as it is, just like Joanna Chen’s installation/painting (factual style) or Annie Chong’s watercolor series (with a dose of childlike dreaminess). Or indirectly, like Kelvin Atmadibrata’s origami and video artwork. But besides using the art form as a mere tool to bring across the message, is there anything more to the similarity? Well, I shall come back to that later.

Food + Family = Love

This is the second confession I am going to make for this essay- I really enjoy my interview with the artists. Despite being part of the curatorial team, I hardly know most of those involved in this exhibition. Through the excuse of needing to conduct interview with each of them for our exhibition blog, I had the opportunities to take a closer look at each artist’s definition of “Eat With Family” and themselves. I must say that I surfaced from this experience, a much humbled person and awe-struck by the deep-rooted and far-reaching influence of family in our lives.

For many, a sure way to build a family relationship is through sharing a meal together. For Joanna Chen, this meaning is stretched to mean having a home-cooked meal in a physical home. Though not intentional, Betsy Toh’s work depicted a family dinner scene at home. In this regard, the warmth and love of a family seem best captured by a table of food, surrounded by you family members, in your most familiar physical environment, your home. Yes, noticed that I prefer to use the word “home” rather than “house”. As Vincent Chow explained, a house may not necessarily be a home.

Annie Chong used her usual style of imageries, a cloud that was, in fact, smoke coming from mum’s cooking, groups of charming animals enclosed in a safe environment which is telling of our innate desire to feel protected which we can find in our families and friends.  Yong Hwang would prefer the viewers to explore their family relationships through the staples we place on our dinner table. Whichever imagery we use on you, we like you to ponder on the meaning of family, or even friends, in your life. What is their effects or necessity?

There are two art groups in our midst- Artloft and Pauseability. For this current exhibition, Pauseability, a group of amateur artists of varied ages, created a series of their Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) based on this theme. Artloft decided to use a novel multi-dimensional method to impart the importance of life skills and kinship values through re-enacting the whole scenario of preparing food for the family. For both groups, this exhibition gave an opportunity to allow the group members to explore the theme of kinship through the familiar technique of cardmaking for one, and the other, a wonderful teaching and learning opportunity for the kids and teachers. Through showcasing their final products, we hope that you, the audience, can bring with them a part of their learning experiences, of the importance of time spent together as a family and how art can relate that message to the young and old.

Family (+ Food) = Who We Are

Now if you and me are to take a step back and look at the big picture, we will see the implication of our family upbringing that affects you and I in the long run. In this aspect, Vincent Chow and Kelvin Atmadibrata explore the relationship between parents and children. Even if the parents are the authoritative figures in a household, does it mean what they do are right all the time? And on a deeper level, how much of their belief shaped ourselves and make us who we are now? I hope their installations can encourage you to take an inward look in your role(s) as a parent and/or child and outwardly, how this family behavior affects your surrounding friends and closed ones, and even shape our society as a whole.

(Food time) = Communication = Family

It is interesting (or should I say uncanny) that there are two artists, not knowing each other or the work each is presenting, believe that television is the bane of family time spent together.  For both Rin and Grace Foo, through their installations, questioned the amount of time we spend on our modern city electronics in exchange for time spent with family. Moses Sia’s work, NonDisposable, asked the question if this was shaped by our modernism, where many thing, including mealtime with our family, had to be instantaneous ad fast? As what Sun Wahyu further illustrated, quality time with family would mean retreating to a comfortable environment to be together without distraction. Communication is the key element in these pieces.

Family (+ Food) = Art = Imperfection of the Perfect

Being an Asian born and bred locally, I must say that we are not exactly the expert in the fine art of communication. But we get by and we think we perceive when family love is expressed. Perhaps the ability to communicate (or the lack of it) is the key to the present tussle between the older and younger generations of our days.

In my pieces, you will see disagreements and reconciliation between a daughter and her parents brought about by food. And perhaps I need to clarify this, the emotions drawn on the canvas pertained to the state of mind then as expressed in the writing on the canvases. It was not about emotions on its own. Say for instance, you might be angry at what your mum told you but it would be anger at that her particular speech. This anger would likely be tinged with a sense of tenderness still, towards her. Or say, you might be confused over the next best decision but your confusion was about satisfying your desire or your parents’. It was like disorder within an order. Dissatisfaction warped in a bubble of love.

When I looked at my finished art works, I could always find some faults, or weakness in my work. And that was when I suddenly realized, that art, perhaps, even with your best intention, may not satisfy most the time, or even all the time for some of us. And this goes for our family relationships, we try our best to make it work and there will be (many) times when we flop but we will continue to try nevertheless; because we know it is worth every effort we put in. To have a family is like having a perfect gift, for the imperfect us.

And art will always be there, for me to document my imperfect tries with my best intended message.