Elia Nurvista

12 June 2021
5pm—6.30pm (SGT)

To register please email:
aki@greyprojects.org

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Growing organically from my longstanding interest in food, my practices often discuss food through issues such as identity, gender, class, the politics of the food chain and other issues that might seemingly be unrelated at first glance. Through a process of scrutinizing and further research, I came to realize the existence of certain patterns that back up these issues revolving around food and food systems such as the notion of power, ideology, agency, and capital.

One of my ongoing observations departs from the history of the Cold War and how it shapes a global food constellation. Starting from my previous short residency in Bucharest, when I did research about the food austerity in communist Romania, I found one of the ingredients that reminded the citizens of the trauma was chicken feet, a popular food item consumed largely in China, and Southeast Asia. In some ways, it could be used as a sign of food shortage which was a big issue during the war, yet for me it can be a symbol of resistance.

Using chicken feet as a tool to examine this global food constellation, I am eager to learn more about the trajectory of events that seems fragmented. Through this preliminary mapping: from US food aid, land reform and green revolutions in Asia, food trade and policies, which are unseparated from political ideology and the alliance between countries, including in Indonesia and Southeast Asia region, hopefully we can build further discussion about our daily food which is usually taken for granted.

Elia Nurvista was born in Yogyakarta. She obtained her BFA from Indonesia Institute of Fine-Art (2010). She is interested in exploring a wide range of art mediums with an interdisciplinary approach and focus on the discourse of food. Through food, she intends to scrutinize power, social and economic inequality in this world.

She has participated in several exhibitions including, 9th APT QAGOMA, Brisbane (2018), Singapore Biennale, Singapore (2019), Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka (2020) and attended residencies “Politics of Food” program in Delfina Foundation, London (2014), and one year long residency in Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2018-19) among others.

In 2015 she initiated a Bakudapan food study group with colleagues from different disciplines such as anthropology and philosophy. Bakudapan runs with the principle of complementarity and camaraderie between the members. With Bakudapan she has conducted research on food within the socio-political and cultural context. In 2019 Bakudapan and Bodies of Power/ Power for Bodies created a platform called Struggles for Sovereignty, where she actively worked about food and climate justice. Nurvista lives and works in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.