crave developed out of pondering about my relationship to food in terms of its production, preparation, consumption. The resulting series of four installations are: crave, cook, eat, digest. crave is a construction of longing. The mouth, symbolized by 300 tongues in the shape of a Chinese soup spoon, becomes the focal site of desire, describing the sensation of taste, of salivation, of language. The use of aromatic Indian spices, what the spoons contain, and of Islamic ornamentation, the design that contains the spoons, speaks of silk-and-spice-road tourism by pushing at reductive definitions of “Asian” while also exploring the ceaseless longing for difference, for otherness.

Curated by Sylvie Gilbert for “Clay Between My Fingers,” Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for the Arts, Banff, Alberta. Commissioned by Walter Phillips Gallery.