Feeding History: The Politics of Food


Interesting small exhibition at the British Museum looking at the political and economic importance of food in ancient times and drawing parallels to today.

The story was told with just a few objects but it raised ideas I hadn’t thought about before. The division and ownership of land and hierarchical societies only really came about as people shifted from being hunter gatherers to farmers. Also that stable food supply has been at the root of all prosperous societies and the show used the example of Egypt for this and how the pharaoh’s were supported by agricultural production and therefore how it was represented in their burial rituals.

Other exhibits looked at the advent of trade in different foods and focused on two bottles from different ages and places which both featured vines as a design. Finally there was a 1950s film about and Englishman who went out to the American mid-West to farm which shows farmers using barbed wire to enclose land which was shown with sculpture made of antique barbed wire by Pat Courtney a member of the Wasco Tribe whose land was taken in this way.

Closes on 27 May 2019

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