IPEP 2014

IPEP 2014

International Print Exchange Programme (IPEP), India

Theme

'INDIGESTIBLE'

Seventeen artist printmakers are participating from several countries in IPEP-2014.  The portfolio of these artists will be exhibited in each participating artist’s place and will be shared online as well as through social media network. The topics are chosen to make a universal appeal to the people to connect from all walks of life and link aesthetics with the issues of living.

This year we worked on the theme of ‘Indigestible’. The very existence of any life form is threatened when the food is questionable. However, as the progress of human history unfurls its manifestation of ‘Hunger’ that is taking giant leaps, the primordial element ‘Food’ gets affected like never before. The global concern for the fast depleting and contamination of food source is becoming increasingly prominent. The results of the study suggests that approximate one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally. IPEP wants to relate this universal issue with the practice of printmaking. ‘Food’, that is chosen for a topic because the Print as a media that is as universal as it is close to all of us irrespective to any culture yet it renders a unique flavour for each individual just like each print has its individuality and universality.

Rajesh Pullarwar

Curator IPEP

DELISH

masticating time
between the hollows
of my mouth
i surrender myself
to
the sap of our loving.

i nibble spaces
(they pop)
i peck at memories
(they sizzle and pass on)

who says food feeds us?

The circuitous routes and reasons for ingesting, rejecting and lusting after food are many. Food and relationships may have a discontinuous link but there exists an underlying harmony between the two, nevertheless. Food fashions us just as clothes, music, books and friends do. In reality, it is not always we who choose food ~ more often than not, it is food that chooses us. This is so, because of prevailing socio-economic, cultural and even religious factors (“religious” when it pertains to, say, vegetarianism not because of dietary preference but because religion deems so).

Food is an anthem. It culls out our most passionate romances with life, remembrance and rejuvenation. It is replete with colour, texture, aroma, and substance. You may savour, sip, nibble, swallow or masticate food or for that matter, life itself. The bouquet of tantalising aromas is present even in our humdrum lives; in order to arouse its full potential, we only need to pause occasionally and to submerge ourselves within the caucus of Food legislators! 

With food, however, there are hardly any rules. And absolutely no limits. It is a pity that, as with other phenomena of life, post contemporary times have reduced food too, into a cliche. But sphinx-like, it raises its magnificent head again and again through the forests of time, refusing to be denigrated by suffocating definitions. Food, in the final analysis, is hardly about ingredients or component parts or elements of culinary practice; it is, in fact, a levelling ground, a porous field wherein men and women, poets and madmen, rhythm and blues, forks and knives mutate in order to emerge whole.

After all, breaking bread with those we love, is by no means, a trivial act.

Anahite Contractor.

Art Critic, writer, poet 

Mumbai, India

 Printmakers Prints 2013

Aditi Pandey | India | Linocut | Plastic Cow

“The Cows wandering freely in the streets of Indian cities, a commonplace sight that a foreigner may find quite striking. The accepted lifestyle of peaceful cohabitation of the bulls and cows is indeed impressive. The cow is considered holy by the Hindus and revered as mother. The Hindus do not slaughter the cows for meat consumption.

However, the holy cow is falling victim due to our thoughtless waste management system. As the cities and the villages are having open garbage areas where the cows end up scavenging the plastic wastes along with the other food waste. It is found by the researchers that on an average a cow ingests 70 kg of plastic during its lifetime.

Through my work, I wish to make people aware of this vicious torture to these helpless animals who provide us with the most essential nutrition.

Babiscia Fallini | Italy | Lothograph & Emboss

“What once was the “Bel Paese” where reigned the “Dolce Vita”, is now a land of cultural, social and environmental degradation. In Italy the situation is indigestible and I wanted to represent that”

Chhering Negi | India | Etching | Indigestible

“Statistics shows that half of Indian children and more than half of the women suffer from anemia. What is surprising is not merely the existence of such a situation but also the paucity of public attention on an issue so very pertinent. Here, through an imagery that is very direct which shows the very harshness of the reality. Surrounding the malnourished boy with his undernourished brother is that tormenting deprivation of what is actually an entitlement; food.

Hunger surrounds them. We, as a nation, see the worst undernourishment and yet we have the largest unused food stock in the world. The possibility of a better to-morrow is there. And, so is reflected in the background, but if only good sense prevails. As they say, ‘hunger is ugly and the souls are forgotten’, here is an attempt to not let the hungry be forgotten; to keep this very important issue alive.”

Jorge Bacelar | Portugal | Intaglio | indiGMOstible

“My idea is based on the ongoing debate over genetically modified foods. I chose to create some kind of “food” with a suspicious appearance, probably indigestible ...”

Kay Watanabe | Australia | Linocut | Only a Few 

“The theme of IPEP ‘Indigestible’ instantly made me think of  inequality in food distribution. Nowadays, there are various other food-related issues in the world, such as genetically-modified food, but the problem of hunger and the gap between those who have access to food and those who don’t has existed for so long and yet it has not been resolved. With my linocut ‘Only a Few’, I intended to express  the shortage of food in developing countries, many of which are located in the southern hemisphere (shown in the lower part of the print) and the proportionate minority of people who live in affluent countries in the northern hemisphere and consume the majority of food in the world (shown in the upper part of the print). The black and white linocut on crisp white paper is intended to visually maximize the contrast between the two.”

Martha Castellanos | Spain / Maxico | Etching | Indigestible

“I think this topic is very suggestive. The idea came to me of etching a graphic metaphor of how the mighty eats the weak, with blind greed and desire for supremacy. Thus, this attitude is like a cascade, which is reproduced in the other and is consumed as food. The man is turned into a predator of himself and also a predator of nature. The image depicts a huge being swallowing a totally helpless child and this child in turn swallows a fish – a sea resource, with the same attitude. Man does not see the difference between eating to live and eating for egoistic need, possessions and anxiety. Compelled with a vital need to swallow as much as possible ignoring the social and ecological consequences, as well as sufferings, men act blindly.”

Maryana Myroshnychenko | Ukraine | Etching | The Banquet of Trimalchio

“The Banquet of Trimalchio’ shows two antipodes: an abundance of food and hunger. Trimalchio is a freedman who has attained power and wealth. All his rest life he made banquets fulling extravagances and raunchy. Trimalchio is surrounded with fortune, holding cornucopia and parks, spinning golden thread, which symbolizes a great future. In the bottom I painted a hungry child with bread crumbs. The death and vultures are watching for him.”

Mimma Maspoli | Italy | Etching | Too Much

“A big mouth with a giant uvula. Inside, a huge quantity of  everything. Far from being a basic need for survival, this “food” creates chaos and waste. This is indigestible for our stomach as well as for our consciousness.

How far and where are we going?”

Montserrat Ansótegui | Spain | Termograbado | Fermentzadn

“Food, World Concern, Communication, Need Creativity, Basic, Exchange, Feature, Personal, Look, News, Practice, Survival, Exhibition, Context, Art, Activity, Professional, Shortage, Creation, Contact, Culture, Deprivation , Transformation, environment, All Coordination Perspective, Consumables, Research, Participation, Society, Contribution, Knowledge.”

Nayan Kalita | India | Etching | The Thinker

“Pertaining to hunger, here I want to show the absence of the most basic need of life. Egg, regarded by experts as the most nutritional food item becomes symbolic to a wholesome meal. With an empty crate of eggs in the foreground, reminiscent of the torment of hunger, well depicted by the borrowed image of the French artist Rodin’s sculpture ‘Gates of Hell’. Thus, here is an attempt to heavily emphasise the violation of human dignity due to the depravity of a nutritional intake which, otherwise is each and everyone’s right.”

Paul Valadez | USA | Linocut

“Cakes are truly beautiful, elegantly clad with all the decorations in the sweetest of frostings available. These are all good things to have for memory making, great for occasions like weddings and birthday celebrations, promotions, graduations etc. all the wonderful moments of life. I have never heard of sad cakes like funeral cake or you got fired cakes. 

Celebrate with a little cake.”

Prapti Chavnke | India | Etching & Aquatint | Today's Feast

“Feast is always being pleasant and delicious for the people whose lives are ordinary and who have no choice or money to buy particular food according to their needs. Yet till date lots of children are dying every day due to lack of food and water. We always throw food in garbage which is extra or got spoiled. This spoiled food could have been feast for the emaciated child. These children are surviving on garbage food. Wastage of food during function or party can be utilized to feed the hungry ones. If we are eating food without need that means indirectly we are responsible for the starvation of so many.”

Rajesh Pullarwar | India | Serigraph | The Last Supper

“The apple was forbidden in the eternal paradise of the perfect man and the perfect woman created by God. It is the innate desire for the indigestible that wrecked the serenity of peaceful perfection of the paradise. That journey of the DNA / RNA evolution continues. 

Are we still sinning?”

Reynaldo Santiago | USA | Serigraph 

Sergio Aragón | Spain | Linocut

“My approach starts from the point of view of wasted food. Something that is a basic need becomes in another product controlled by the market forces, prices, offers, demands and speculation.  My print shows a cake, a delicious and sweet food thrown on the ground, full of dirt, It has been discarded because of satiation and now some ants are taking advantage of it. The global food waste it´s infamous, both from a human being and an environmental perspective.”

Silvia Sala | Italy | Etching | Inedible

“A man eating another man eating another man eating another man eating...

In the background, an antique red wall paper. Food and any other resources are eaten and frequently wasted in this uneven resource distribution world. Nothing seems to be left for our future. Shall we eat one another? Shall we eat our culture, our history, our destiny? All this is inedible. Humanity is inedible.”

Yogesh Adkine | India | Corex Cut | Indigestible

“We treat food in different social contexts besides fulfilling our basic need. The society reveals at one end, the celebration and wastage of food in extravagant weddings and at the other extreme, the farmers who are yielding the crops commits suicide in India. When IPEP asked me to work on food related subject, I wanted to work on this social contrast that I find strongly disturbing.”

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