Food looms increasingly large in the human psyche, fuelled by beliefs, conscience and identity. In this, Elizabeth Willing is well ahead of the curve. For over 15 years she has explored food as inspiration, subject and material for sculpture, installation and performance.
Now her most ambitious project yet will premiere for Brisbane Festival. As Willing explains, “Kitchen Studio has brought together my installation with performance practices, the most significant opportunity I’ve had to blend the two sides of my work.” The result is a day-time exhibition which transforms into a dining room installation in the evenings—the site of a dining performance that invites innovative approaches to edible materials.
Kitchen Studio, Willing says, “breaks the usual rules of hospitality” with its disruption of traditional ideas about food, delving into “new connections between the mind and the gut. I feel confident it will open up new facets in my work and the space of food design and experimental eating.”
Willing gravitated towards food as art given her parallel interests in chemistry, edible ingredients and structure. Her childhood led her to sense that “food and love are connected, an idea both soothing and problematic”. In the past she has collaborated with chefs to create performances, but for Kitchen Studio has designed the food offerings herself. “I worked with local producers to commission each course, so that aspect will be brought in externally.”
Among Kitchen Studio’s desired outcomes are conversations about food and its connection to the body—less a meal than an experience. In a comfortable dining room the audience will be offered an array of edible substances, with a highlight being shortbread biscuits that have absorbed human odours. Mocktails will be served in sculptural beeswax vessels, and seven gold nuggets will be concealed in chocolate during the performances.
Kitchen Studio: Food for thought
Elizabeth Willing
Metro Arts, as part of Brisbane Festival
On now—26 October
This article was originally published in the September/October 2024 print edition of Art Guide Australia.
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