Food as art

“Food is an everyday, direct mode of communication, even between cultures.”

I found this quote from the interview with Atelier Bow-Wow extremely interesting since it related directly to the food wrappers I have been saving for my archive project. Although last week I was looking at these wrappers as a marker of a point in time, with this new interview in mind it is also intriguing to look at these through the lens of gastronomy. All of these bite size candies are meant for on-the-go consumption; in my personal experience these treats served as a quick snack and moment of connection and sharing between peers - saving them was an interesting way of savoring that moment in the best way I could during my busy day.

Each of these brightly colored wrappers reflects a moment of peace in an incredibly busy and stressful week - something that is advertised, commodified, thingified, in a society that pushes for work and constant productivity. A little piece of candy serves as a treat, an incentive, to keep you going in your endless stream of work. Food, as Bow-Wow points out, is incredibly important to connection and culture: in these pieces of trash I can see my moments of comradery between peers during a late night study session, all of which are oddly (underlined? overshadowed?) by the reminder of the work that needs to be done.

“Architecture, like eating, should be unprogrammed and informal—a stage where the social only heightens sensation”