Semiotics of a (Thai) Kitchen
@ Open Signal Fest ︎Portland, OR
A livestream workshop performance that captures the tools, social systems, and tropes of performative hospitality inside the art of constructing the globalized Thai food. The artist stands in front of a green screen while a 15-mins clip is projected on top of the wall behind her.
About the piece:
Based on a 1975 video piece, the artist recreates Martha Rosler's 'Semiotics of The Kitchen,' in which Rosler performs a culinary hostess introducing domestic objects. Given the boom of traveling cooking shows and digital influencer food channels of today, Semiotics of a Thai Kitchen comments on the social, political, and economical landscape with an added component of race, invisible labor, and the shortsighted multiculturalism ideals of "bringing people together" that mask the neocolonial gaze.
What happens when there is an Asian body performing ritualized or cultural cooking codes isolated and displaced from its original site of "homeland"?
More documentations coming soon.