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NATURE, ÁRT, ACTIVISM 239
Hajnal Gyeviki
"Tin constantly working on creating objects of use and artworks, all serving the same
goal... Anything that brings us alienated people closer to nature or at least to a more
natural, simpler way of living.”
In this luckier half of the Earth, we are living in an age when our food-related
thoughts are normally satisfying. We are fond of food, of its taste; we like to eat.
We don't eat just to avoid death, but eating as a sociocultural activity has an
important role in our lives. What we eat tells a lot about us. Our meals also indicate
our culture, our social position — without most of us taking any role anywhere in
the long process of food production, apart from consumption. Why should we
take any? We can thank the food industry for such civilizational achievements as
tomatoes in the winter, kitchen-ready “meat” from the other side of the planet —
without suffering, too — or immediately available limitless fast-food, whether
handed in through the car window, or getting it from the delivery guy at the door
of your home. This unprecedented comfort appears to be good as long as you can
remain insensitive to all the drawbacks of the system.
Beyond the environmental, ethical, legal (human and animal rights) anxieties,
we are unaware of the gravity of the health-damaging effects of most chemically
treated foodstuffs fed with antibiotics and produced on an industrial scale. We
may easily be headed for doom via the materials we hope to ensure our long life
with.
But this is not the only option. Even in this, allegedly luckier, part of the world,
here and now, alienation is not the only alternative. Some may search their
memories, others browse the internet; some may have the possibility to contribute
to the long process of food production, others may not. One thing is certain: we
are all consumers. We are unable to produce, or decompose our own food without
the activity of organisms living together with us. We are one of the most helpless
actors in the food chain. Can we be responsible partakers of the ecosystem in spite
of — or, conversely, because of — this?
This is my credo; this is why I create works.
In my current research, I started examining the complex phenomenon of the
path of our food from three directions. The first series in time is titled Wild ining
and addresses the connection between foraging and contemporary consumer
culture. The second is Soz/ setting, which guestions our feelings, thoughts, and
ideas of cleanliness. I gave the title Food in situ to the third collection, in which
root vegetables are the starting point for taking a close look at the trinity of food,
soil and human beings.
In Wild_ining, | focussed on the perishing of modern humans’ knowledge about
wild plants. What is the value of berries collected with our hands in the age of
ultra-processed and ready-to-eat food? Could we look upon edible wild plants
growing in cities as food, if we knew them? How does our attitude to consumption
change when we collect the edibles? I meditated on these questions in making
Reward, an item of the series. The form of the chewing-gum machine many of us
remember from childhood was translated into noble materials, glass and ceramic
with the twist that in the glass ball, instead of colorful balls and marbles, we see
thorny twigs with rosehips. The idea of instant access must be revised.