This year has been a busy one so far!

My next solo exhibition for the year, titled On Food & Memory opens today – Saturday 18th June at 2pm at Gabriel Gallery, Footscray Community Arts Centre.

For more information visit FCAC website and for those interested in the Catalogue Essay, see below:

Artist Statement

In this audio-visual exhibition On Food & Memory I document intimate stories about food histories and traditions that shape people’s memories.

Memories are of course deeply personal, but they also construct the rich tapestry of social life.  This exhibition explores the connections between food, culture and identity; how food is used in rituals and how it forms sensory memory.

In my journey into personal and collective memory, I wondered, in what ways does food, eaten by individuals, feed collective memory?

The stories in this exhibition offer up many answers to this question. But one thing was always apparent – these are all stories about love.

Artist Biography

Rasha Tayeh is a Palestinian artist based in Melbourne; her work crosses a range of photography, film, sound and installation practices. She is also a nutritionist and researcher, interested in food anthropology and the space where art and health intersect. Rasha’s work draws on themes around phenomenology, identity, feminist issues, spirituality and humans’ place in society and their natural environment.

Her work has been exhibited at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (Melbourne), National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne), Alderman Gallery (Melbourne), Little Woods Gallery (Melbourne), Sustainable Living Festival (Melbourne), Transitions Film Festival (Melbourne & Adelaide), Environmental Film Festival (Melbourne), Sguardi Altrove Film Festival (Milan), Hidden Features Cinema (Edinburgh), Life Sciences Film Festival (Prague) and the Palestine Museum of Natural History (Bethlehem).

List of works

Acknowledgements

I would like to specifically thank a number of people who helped make this exhibition possible. Firstly, my grandmother, Teita Nadia and my mother Raida Dajani who’s unconditional love, support and delicious recipes have continually nourished my soul and inspired this project. My dear friends and community who generously shared their beautiful stories, intimate memories and delicious dishes and took part in this project: Sonia Perez, Marcella Brassett, Nazaree Dickerson, Shu Liu, Marcelo Zerwes, Edward Clarke, Louis Majiwa and Jad Choucair.

Thanks to Janak Rogers for his invaluable support during audio post-production, Tim Ainsworth at Thirds Fine Art Printing and Aaron Wilson for his website support. Hani Tayeh for his helping hands during installation and Sary Zananiri for being my sounding board.

I would also like to thank the talented composers and musicians whose work features in some of the audio portraits: Benoit Charron, Nader Ruhayel and Matt Nicholson.

Finally, thanks to the fantastic team at FCAC for their extraordinary support in presenting this exhibition, especially Bernadette Fitzgerald, Isabel Fitzgerald, Catherine French and Darren Gee.