As Above, So Below, 2020Essay filmFor Istanbul Design Biennale ‘Empathy revisted’
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Collaboration with Mariana Sanchez Salvador
Curated by Mariana Pestana with Billie Muraben and Sumitra Upham
Empathy begins with acknowledging the position of our body in the world, not simply towards a different body, but also across time and dimensions. Food spans across all aspects of our lives, from the most profane everyday nourishment to the sacrifices that made an anthropological imprint on the collective psyche. It connects science and myth, known and unknown. The meal, the settlement, the landscape, the cosmos, down to the microbial and viral in our guts and in the air - food allows us to discover a new perspective on our world. The film makes use of archive images and microscopic photography of edible substances - fruits, vegetables, grain, fish, vitamins - as a metaphor of the macro, to create a timeless, scaleless world.