I love to eat. But over the past many years I have became aware of food as a battle ground for people in my professional life, my community and globally.
As a psychiatrist, I have been working with people who suffer from Eating disorders. They react to many foods with fear and loathing. Endless battles go on in their minds about eating.
In Vancouver a recent newspaper article headlined “Vancouver’s Food Fight’. It described the turf wars that higher end restaurants were embroiled in, poaching staff from each other.
Globally Lang and Heasman describe the battle for “Mouths, Minds and Markets” in their book Food Wars.
Many ideological dichotomies creating warring camps have developed over the past couple decades such as:
Fast foods vs. Slow foods,
High carbohydrates vs. low carbohydrate diets,
Scientific farming vs. organic/sustainable farming,
Food from factories vs. food from the land,
Food is now a politicized issue pitting food control vs. food democracy.
In this series of photographs I reflect on these issues drawing the viewer in by the seductiveness of the colors of the foods and the surrealistic scenes. |
