THE WITNESS OF OUR TIME
As one of the common social venues in Taiwanese culture, the kitchen is an important place to connect with family members and friends. The backstory of what makes homemade food taste special is the love and care we share. It is that laughter and tears that light up our hearts. I’m going to discuss a range of food and cooking items that we tend to use in Taiwanese culture which are important keys to my artistic practice. We tend to mix different styles of foods into one for breakfast. On the menu of typical Taiwanese “breakfast store,” there could be sandwiches, burgers, Chinese omelet (flour with scallion and egg), radish cake, soy milk, milk tea and more. It’s a mixture of Western and Eastern cultures at the same store.
The final goal of my thesis project is an audio visual performance. These videos will be projected on a black curtain and a light hanging behind will reveal me preparing the food. The audience will hear the amplified gentle sound of chopsticks stirring the dough or the hissing of a steamer when the water is boiling. From this different point of seeing things, this different perspective, a simple cooking procedure could contain more emotions and feelings than the usual sped-up one. I consider it an experience of zoomed-in life scenes that I want to deliver to audiences with ease and hope.
Special thanks to Youngin Sa for live performance video recording and Lingzi Zheng for assisting
Equipment supported by RISD D+M and RISD Nature Lab
Supported by RISD Materials Found
