In my hands: ongoing series of feeling food

January 10, 2014

In my hands: ongoing series of feeling food

In late 2013, I decided to leave my country of origin, my workplace, and my ground of artistic engagement to follow my little family to France. My aim was to fulfill my social commitments as a father and husband and to seek new experiences in the global village we call our planet.

This decision had been brewing for some time. There was a general exodus of intellectuals from New Delhi, where we were living. It wasn’t clear then why people were leaving; perhaps it was a generational shift. We were no longer the under-thirty crowd that could thrive in the city. Many of us were settling down in our chosen fields and embracing parenthood. There was certainly a disillusionment with the socio-political scene and the narrowing vision of the urban middle classes, which became evident in the subsequent years.

But at that time, my alternative was to retreat to my hometown in Madhya Pradesh and further develop a rural initiative I had started in 2012 (http://aulinjaamp.blogspot.com/). The project focused on reviving traditional farming knowledge against the onslaught of industrial agriculture, which had taken deep root in the countryside following two decades of economic reforms since 1993. Alongside this revival, there were ideas for peripheral investigations into local arts and crafts, sustainable architecture, water conservation, and a general sense of creative ecology.

However, I had not realized that while I was considering a move to village life, destiny would bring me to one of the busiest metropolises in the world—Paris. Here, I had to start anew, even learning how to unlearn. When a person is detached from their comfortable surroundings, they often cling strongly to their roots to cope with the new environment. This series, which I later titled ‘A Handful,’ was my way of immersing myself physically into the subject matter of my studies and the intense engagement of my earlier life in the countryside.

Between 2012 and 2014, I had spent many months in an artist residency in Switzerland, participated in a symposium on food in Chicago, and then adjusted to a new life in Paris. In Paris, packaged food is the norm, distancing one's relationship with nourishment through the thin medium of capital. Before you touch, smell, or eat your daily food, you must exchange money—a part of your time, a part of your existence. In less capitalistic societies, you are still allowed to touch and feel your food before consuming it. This layer of plastic sophistication is what this series aims to highlight—this distancing from our daily realities where millions go hungry and billions live in malnourished.

This feeling struck me profoundly in January 2014 during a return visit to India. I missed the feel of culture in ways that are hard to define visually or textually. I wandered aimlessly, not knowing how to grasp it, how to feel it, knowing I would be away for a long time from my local culture, there was a sense of urgency at hand. Then, suddenly, while in a crowded market on the banks of the Brahmaputra in Guwahati, the opportunity arose. One of the missing sensations was the touch of food. All the memories and senses from a long time ago came alive. Growing up in small towns, we would go to local kirana shops and touch, toss, smell, press, and almost taste our daily food. This practice is still very much alive even in urban India, quite the opposite of European and American supermarkets.