Artwork created for the collective exhibition “Comida es Medicina/Food is Medicine” at la Galería de la Raza in San Francisco, CA, US.
Artwork Statement:
The āmoxtli (book) or codex reveals how the religious, social, and economical life was in the Mexican cultures, including the feeding of the population, recipes, ingredients, and how to cua (comer/eat). Made with a cardboard box to import organics fruits or vegetables from Mexico to Canada, trough an US company, the āmoxtli inquires the politics of organic food, who is producing it, and who is consuming it. The artwork aims to represent the importance to understand how to eat, consume, and fight for a better food quality in Latin America, and abroad. The āmoxtli invites to interpret how to read, and make conscience on our food consumption; food is medicine, knowledge, revolution, resistance, and decolonial though.
Gallery Description:
Comida Es Medicina Exhibition
Co-curated by Suzy González and Luz Calvo
Saturday, August 11, 2018 – Friday, November 2, 2018
Comida es Medicina considers the topic of food justice from Latinx, Chicanx, Central American, indigenous, and immigrant perspectives. This group exhibition contests white supremacy by uplifting the knowledge, traditions, and practices of immigrant and indigenous members of our communities in relation to food, ancestral knowledge, and respect for Mother Earth.
The exhibition consists of a wide variety of artistic forms, including paintings, screenprints, videos, zines, sculptures, installation, and mixed media. The exhibition will extend to Galería’s Digital Mural Project, Galería, and Studio 24.
The selected works demonstrate the diverse ways that contemporary Latinx artists uplift indigenous and immigrant food knowledge, while also providing a powerful critique of the exploitation embedded in the current foods systems. Several of the pieces provide a pointed critique of the greedy underside of agribusiness, gentrification, appropriation, and the genetic modification of our sacred corn. Taken as a whole, the pieces in the show powerfully represent the multiple ways our communities are creating bold visions of food justice, decolonization, and community healing.
The works exhibited in Studio 24 are interactive pieces produced by artists from various immigrant communities. This art encourages the viewer to draw connections between their own food memories and other communities’ experiences of longing, belonging, and exclusion.
This exhibition is co-curated by Suzy González and Luz Calvo, with support from the Galería staff. Comida es Medicina is supported in part by the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Southwest Airlines, and the Surdna Foundation through a grant from the NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant Program.
