Food: Bigger than the Plate


Strange but interesting exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the role of food in our lives.

I liked the way each section looked at how we’d dealt with an issue in the past then invited artists and designers to respond to the theme such as how we farm, trade and dispose of food.

I loved a section on how we could reuse food waste from cups and saucers made of coffee grounds, a plastic alternative made from the peeling from a McCann factory and a fabric made from citrus rinds. The picture used here is of mushrooms being grown in the show on hanging bags which included coffee grounds from the café and in turn the mushrooms were to be used in the same café.

Another section looked at animals in farming and started with the 19th pictures commissioned by the Board of Agriculture from James Ward to record every type of livestock in the country at the time and to classify them. On display in this area Elaine Tin Nyo looked at the life of a piglet from birth to ham in photographs mounted on food tins.

The final section looked at how eating brings people together with a lovely display of cook books including hand written ones and ending with a table set with new ideas for crockery and cutlery.

Closes on 20 October 2019

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