Action 5 – Transcending the Limits of the Real

Very new to the medium of Video Sketching or Videography in general, but I looked forward to this assignment as it allowed me to think of narratives and make storyboards. Rather confused about what direction to pursue I started by thinking about which Action I had enjoyed so far. The answer was Action 2 – Terroir. I had loved the idea of making someone else experience your identity, preferences and culture through food. Food for me is one medium that can transcend barriers of language and culture and is understood across the world in varied but sometime similar fashion.

My first video is called deconstructing a meal. I am super fascinated about how different individual ingredients come together to create a single dish. Every time I travel and eat something new – I either write about it or sketch it out. During action 2 I had realised how the same base ingredients are treated so differently from culture to culture and tribe to tribe. Food is a complex experience that engages all our five sense – Sight, Sound, Smell, Touch and Taste. I wanted to study the intricacies of how a certain sense interacts with the food we eat by isolating the interaction.

What happens when you ‘deconstruct’ a meal to observe its interaction with a single sense – say sight?

Deconstructing a meal visually.

Proceeding on the same lines my next video was about texture and touch of food. While the meal from the first video was from a fine dine, for the second video I chose a simple Indian street side condiment – Curry Leaf Chutney. I went down to the food stall near my house to get the recipe, collected the ingredients from our garden and stitched the process in a short video. I tried to play with the before and after texture of the individual ingredients.

Memories from the street

The making of these videos got me curious about a lot of things relating to the concept of ‘Terroir’

What is the journey of the individual ingredients on our food?

Where does the food we put on plate come from? What’s the journey?

Where do our culinary traditions come from? And how do they influence our identity?

Is food simply a mode of survival or is it a deciding factor in social and political hierarchies of our world systems?

Leave a Reply