Maryna Masel – (Thou Shall Not) Taste Thy Neighbour, or the Opening of Venus in Times of Climate Crisis

11. 10. 2022

Theresa Schubert, ›mEat me‹, Human cultured meat in petri dish, Theresa Schubert / Kapelica Gallery Archives, 2020

Social media platforms are overflowing with photographs of food. Some posters show off culinary delights they tried during their trip or brag about their cooking skills. Ad images of mouth-watering sushi or juicy burgers interrupt your newsfeed, pushing you to order them online. Having a meal is a daily ritual these days, just like taking smartphone photos. Day-to-day actions become so common that we stop thinking about the processes that enable them.

Ukrainian artist Maryna Masel created “Little Culinary Stories”, her first photo project, taking inspiration from avant-garde artist Wassily Kandinsky. Kandinsky deployed colours and shapes, classifying paints by their smells, sounds, and forms; colour-and-shape combinations created original visual symphonies. Using this method, Maryna combines shapes and colours through edible elements and conjures abstract compositions typical for avant-garde painting.

At first sight, the works from her latest photo series, “Menu for Tomorrow”, look like typical ad shots for a glossy magazine or a new restaurant’s promo campaign. Bright colours and evenly filled frames grab viewers’ attention. The focus is on plates of food. However, taking a careful look up close, one sees that it is not a salmon steak or mussels but plastic, trash, and everyday things like shopping bags, wine corks, and plastic forks. Aesthetics and filth blend, teetering on the brink. The photographs provoke mixed feelings of admiration and aversion.

Focusing on colour and composition, the artist puts different accents to work. Instead of a central abstract story, Maryna moves onto a laconic, even filling of the frame, highlighting the central object. In the centre of each frame, there is a plate of “food” where artificial items are mixed with natural products, decorating the main dish. The elements of this main “dish,” split into pieces, are scattered around the white plate in a seemingly random yet balanced manner. Like food scraps after cooking, these elements are lying, casually forgotten, on a clean surface.

“Menu for Tomorrow” addresses the global environmental problem—pollution of the world oceans. Trash and industrial waste are the deadliest marine-life killers. Most people see this problem as abstract and out of touch with reality. Oceans are a major source of food for humans. Masel shows how seafood is transforming and what fish or mussels might look like in the future. It is a critical gaze that urges us to think about whether we are genuinely willing to consume these new foods.

Image captions

1 | Theresa Schubert, ›mEat me‹, Human cultured meat in petri dish, Theresa Schubert / Kapelica Gallery Archives, 2020

2 | Theresa Schubert, ›mEat me‹, Performance at Kapelica Gallery, Hana Josic / Kapelica Gallery Archives, 2020

3 | Theresa Schubert, ›mEat me‹, Dinner leftover (makro photograph of fried meat), Theresa Schubert / VG Bild-Kunst Bonn, 2020

4 | Theresa Schubert, ›mEat me‹, Biopsy on the artist’s leg, video still, Hana Josic / Kapelica Gallery Archives, 2020

Kateryna Radchenko

works as curator, photographer, photography researcher. Lives and works in Ukraine. She´s founder and director of the international festival Odessa Photo Days. As an author, she has published articles in several international magazines and online platforms, such as Fotograf, Magenta, EIKON, FOAM Magazines. Curated exhibitions in Ukraine, South Korea, Sweden, Georgia, France, Germany, Belarus and Latvia.

Maryna Masel

is a young photo artist based in Kyiv, Ukraine. She began her professional path as a photographer in 2018. Prior to that, she had a few start-ups and a business career spanning more than 15 years. She participated in many contests and exhibitions such as Female Ukrainian Photographers 2021 (finalist) or the collective photo exhibition “Torture. Human. Life.” in 2019 in Kyiv, Ukraine.

#42 Food

Food is a basic physical need of every living creature. In the context of human society, issues around food and food security are seen as a continuous, necessary process associated with the production, distribution, presentation, consumption and disposal of goods and services. In this constellation, what role does photography play in recording and presenting representations of food and other associated themes related to food issues that address societal customs, traditions, and issues that cut across human and natural history? Food photography is almost never about the food itself. It relates to hierarchies, the division of roles in providing, preparing, serving, and making available one’s own consumption, both in domestic and public settings. It observes culture, structure, quality and targeting in relation to health and the environment. It looks at the professions associated with the phenomenon of food, highlighting open trade, the commerciality of sales, promotion; the importance, function and problematic nature of packaging and waste management. It is interested in the practices and quality of food management. We are witnessing the constant development of the cult of food and food excess. This is a massive expansion of food production, hand in hand with marketing strategies that contribute to a sufficiently authentic experience and convey the product as a unique experience enveloped in a range of positive emotions. The crunch of a crisp, the sound of opening a can of cold drink, the moment of smelling a cup of fresh coffee, the expansion of the taste buds after tasting a piece of chewing gum and the ever glistening, melting rich layer of cheese on a slice of ham pizza are the essential spices of these strategies based on working with the subconscious and reflexes. This is not the end of the spectrum of food-related issues, for on the other side of it is inevitably the starvation of millions of people that cannot be disregarded, the inability to provide affordable sustainable diets along with the biodiversity of ecosystems. What are the environmental challenges currently associated with food production and what will the diet of the future look like?