Food & Self Identity By Shelly Seroussi

Thesis StatementFor my thesis I am interested in exploring the role of food in the formation of self identity and it’s relationship within a social and cultural context. The sense of belonging through food, tradition and sharing is essential to our well being and is what has always been of great interest to me. Although differences in culture and traditions can be traced by the food that’s served, the empower-ing experience of gathering and sharing around the dining table is common to all. I want to explore the importance of food in the formation of one’s “home” and hope it will serve as a gateway into different cultures and traditions.

IMAGE COLLECTION

Marije Vogelzand Marije Vogelzand considers herself an Eating Designer since her designs focus around the verb ‘to eat’. Vogelzang is inspired by the origin of food, the preparation, etiquette, history and culture around it. She asks a lot of relavent and important questions, try-ing to communicate people by manipulating and redesigning the dining experience.

Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik is an artist from Latin and Indian decendents. She often incorporates these influences in her work. She has a series of work that she creates by using different spices. The viewer directly interacts with her work as she communicates through different senses imagery and smells related to her own identity.

Food in Art Many artists have used food as a medium or as a subject in their art. Food being an essential component to our lives is a means through which we can all communicate. I am specifically inter-ested in art pieces that discuss or use issues revolving around the dining experience.

Daniel Spoerri’ creates “snare-pictures” in which he nails objects to the surface and diplays the table on the wall. The table setting becomes a narrative, in this case of the interactions taken place throughout the course of a meal which Spoerri freezes in time by setting the table up on a wall.

The Power of Gathering The gathering of people around a dining table and the sharing of food are empowering activities. Aside from family and friend gathering, this communal space is used as a platform to open up dialogues for creative and community support. Organizations such as InCUBATE Chicago and FEAST Brooklyn organize meals for the community in which artist and community related initiatives are discussed and funded.

InCUBATE Chicago

FEAST Brooklyn

Seroussi Annual PicnicMy extended family reunites every year for a picnic at the same exact location, right next to a monument placed in memory of my great grandparents. Food is shared among the many cousins while stories are told by the older generation.

Kinfolk Magazine Through my research I found many inspirational magazines that focus on the cultural and social context of food. This specific magazine inspires me because I think it’s succesfull in telling the stories of individuals, through food and gatherings. Every issues is a collection of photography, poems, interviews, short stories and recipes.

“We recognize that there is something about a table shared by friends, not just a wedding or once-a-year holiday extravaganza, that anchors our relation-ships and energizes us.”

Food and Culture Food traditions that are handed down through generations be-come part of our own identity. Each culture has it’s own array of ingredients and taste palletes. Judaism as a culture is in itself a complex matter but also in terms of food tradition is very variated depending on the origins of each family.

1. Jane Ziegelman, 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement, (New York: HarperCollins, 2010).

2. Ruth Reichl, Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table, (New York: Random House, 1998).

3. Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, editors, Food and Culture: A Reader, (New York: Routledge, 1997).

4. D. Lupton , Food, memory and meaning: the symbolic and social nature of food events. The Sociological Review, 42: 664–685. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-954X.1994.tb00105.x, (1994).

5. Sami Tamimi and Yotam Ottolenghi, Jerusalem: A Cookbook. (Ten Speed Press 2012).

6. M.F.K. Fisher, The Art of Eating, (Wiley, 1989).

Bibliography

SKETCHES

Personal Food ReferenceAs an excerise to find a relationship between food, culture, self-identity and memory based on my own personal references.

QuestionnareTo get a better sense of how different people define themselves culturally and how it relates to their food relationship I sent out a form with the following questions. The questions were curated from a long list I had previously made.

1. Where were you born?

2. List any other places you’ve lived in for a prolonged period of time or that have had a profound impact on you.

3. What about your parents? Ancestors?

4. How would you define yourself in terms of cultural/social identity?

5. How important would you say family gatherings and shared meals were growing up? Any particular traditions that you can recall?

6. What are your comfort foods? Are there any dishes that make you at feel home?

7. Holidays- Which are the most important in your family? Any staple dishes that wouldn’t be the same without them?

8. Is there a significant occasion in your life that you can recall through a particular dish, or simply by a smell or taste? Name one or more.

9. Have you learned any recipes that run in your family? If so, name a few.

10. Do you cook or enjoy hosting friends/family at home?

Mapping Personal StoriesAfter getting responses from the questionnare I was really inter-ested in the geographical paths and how it reflected on their food associations.

Saturday CookingNarrating my Saturday preparations and cooking process us-ing photography. Through this exercise I started experiment-ing in forms of storytelling and

Videos

http://youtu.be/YPsWobcYndQ

Following my friend Gal throughout her day in the house with her son, Ziv, as she pre-pares him lunch and feeds him. The initial purpose was to document her cooking but because Ziv was hungry I ended up filming her feeding him first. Documenting her con-nection to Ziv through the process of feeding made me realize that this was what I was

really interested in capturing and not the actual food being consumed.

http://youtu.be/evbhBapiiVw

As a proposal for an optional project, Breaking Bread, would be a collection of personal stories of several individuals shared through a meal. I made this stop motion as an intro to the videos of these meal that would subsequently follow.

COUSCOUS AT GAL’S

Gal makes the traditional Couscous with chicken which she has had since she was little for her one year old son, Ziv. Lunch at her home is more than just a meal, it is precious bonding time where Ziv learns that food is not only to fill his tummy but to play and enjoy the company of his mother.

Image and Text- Couscous at Gal’sStorytelling by combining images with text (recipes, talks, emails, answers to the questionnare). As a continuation of attempting to convey the experience of dining as a story I tried to make sense of what the images were portraying through text.

thanksgivingat Eddie and Annabel’s

Image and Text- Thanksgiving

Making Bread

Breaking BreadA possible form of executing my interest of self identity in rela-tion to food through storytelling. Breaking bread would be a series of booklets, each holding a food related story.

ConclusionThrough my research and work I learned that when I focused on the food itself such as ingredients and recipes I felt that I was straying away from the stories and people involved. Storytelling through video and the conjuction of text and imagery became a much more succesful approach. I would like to continue explor-ing forms of storytelling, through videos as well as experimenta-tion of imagery and textures and their relationship to text. My final product would take form as a series of printed short stories accompanied with videos posted on a website.