Sep 8–Oct 30, 2011
Floating Food
Part of the 8. Asia-Pacific Weeks 2011
The artist and collector of worlds, Ulrike Ottinger, compiles a spatial collage, a walk-through, see-for-yourself universe of her visual worlds drawn from four decades of cinematic and photographic creativity.
Fascinated by the Asian culture of planting, nurturing and trading foodstuffs, by the precise aesthetics of Asian cuisine and the social celebration of food and drink, Ulrike Ottinger conceived the poetic composition of the exhibition herself.
The world première of her film Unter Schnee (Under Snow) about daily life and rituals in the northern Japanese province of Echigo rounds off this journey into the artist’s cosmos: a cross between Kabuki and the poetry and reality of this snowy land.
The dance performance Whisperings of Exile by the Indonesian Nan Jombang Dance Company fits the topic of food as if by magic: it is a radically contemporary work with a minimalist stylistic approach that still tells of old traditions.
The concert by the singer Ubiet is an example of how ancient a tradition Asian-European sound fusions can be: she experiments with Kroncong, an Indonesian-Portuguese musical style that goes back more than 500 years.
These extremely diverse tales of Asian cuisine are also the focus of a discussion series entitled Cultural Food Practices.