Memories of Food presented by Videocity

A collaborative exhibition between Videocity X Next Door Records and Bush Hall. Exhibition organised and works chosen by Eleanor Beale: UK Videocity representative

When we share food we share intimate moments. Our physical movements share unspoken languages and our memories are renewed through touch, taste and smell. Past events and fractured spaces appear before us again as ghosts, sometimes welcoming, sometimes not. These earlier experiences are not literally present in the current, but linger in the warmth of a reoccurring smell or the texture of a juicy fruit. When we consume food, our virtual affects, our expectations, imaginations, and fantasies contribute affectively. They shape the present event, be that a memory of off-milk souring the expectation of a hot chocolate, or the process of making jam bringing back childhood. Memories are more powerful in food choice than rational reason.

Food is a comfort, a memory you can keep, touch and care for - also a marker of contradictions - of inclusion and exclusion, distance and closeness, of home, belonging and longing... so of pleasure and pain.

The works of artists and filmmakers Nia Fekri, Apolo Wilson, Ruth Maclennan, Laure Provoust, Gyonyyoung Yoon, Paul Birchall and Kollektiv Wirr, are evocative of these themes. Shown across the two sites on the busy Uxbridge road - an area brimming with diverse cuisines and stuffed with food related goods and culture - the windows become voyeuristic lenses. The works disrupt the publics’ daily routines and grocery shopping trips; they allow the passers-by to watch the food related videos and peer beyond them, to the café customers and evening diners whose consumption frames the works - sharing, chatting or dining alone in contemplation, having a drink or a bite to eat.   Place and Time:  Videos in the window of Next Door Records and Bush Hall: The Music School, Uxbridge Road, London, UK. Daily free public viewings until each site’s closing time (dependent on day).