Sunday, April 5, 2015

Project "What I Eat"- What I ate in Cayman Island

I would like to talk about my concept today before I show you images of what I ate .
I have been using printmaking as one of my primary medium in my art making for a long time. I also have been teaching printmaking classes last seven years at the University of Nevada Reno. While I was using the medium and teaching,  I was thinking about how Printmaking/ Print media has been used not only in the field of art, but also in our society. 

South Koreans went through a though uprising to gain democracy until early 1990th. Printmaking took a very important role as a tool to spread out news and communicate each other because the mainstream media was controlled by the government during the uprising period. People were making images and fliers to communicate with each other to know what was going on. MoMA in NYC had an exhibition called "People's Art" early 90th if I remember correctly. 

I was looking at how Egypt was going through their uprising. It was very interesting to notice that they were using social network to communicated each other during that time. It is a very big different change from 20th to 21h Century that our communication method has been changed from printing to internet based. So I started to think these social networks as a new communication tool for human in the new generation.  

I have been using Instagram for a while. At first, I thought that was such a stupid idea and would never use it. Soon later, I noticed a lot of my friends started to using and then I started using it as well. A very cool thing about Instagram is that you can be connected to all these people in the world through photos. I don't know at least a half of my followers on my Instagram but we regularly communicate each other on Instagram. When I post a photo, people on Instagram can see it. It is a new way to spread out images and ideas and to communicate! 

Another thing I noticed was that people post their selfies and photos of foods they eat! When did we care so much about how our foods look before? There were magazines for foods but it has not been this popular before internet and social network. I was also posting some photos of foods I was eating when either I was having a great meal out with friends or visually nice looking meals that I cook. Then, I started to wonder what if I make a drawing project about what I eat and post a drawing everyday on Instagram. Instead of printing multiple images, Instagram puts my works and a number of people, who are living in different places and time, can see my drawing at at the same time. This is an advanced way of spreading out multiple images, yet conceptually very linked to the idea of printing multiples.
 So, here I am working on my drawings about what I eat. I recently went to Grand Cayman for my vacation during the spring break. As usual, I took all the photos of what I was eating and thought I would make drawings there. Oh well, it was a vacation after all and I did not do anything but enjoy the island. When I came back though, I got back to my studio and pumped out some drawings and have been posting drawings everyday. Here are what I ate while I was in Cayman Island.

 Nobody lived in the island until Spaniards came. Pirates lived there and made rums to export and make money for a while. So, there is not really farms or industry there except for rum factories. As all the foods are imported, they were quite expensive. But seafoods there.... oh my god, that was simply amazing. We went to an Italian restaurant and the shrimp dish was amazing!

 We went to the Seven Miles Beach and had lunch. It was yummy!!!!
I am mostly vegan and gluten free but had to be a bit flexible while I was traveling to enjoy. I had mostly seafood and a bit of cheese but no meat at all. This is meatball spaghetti that my friend had. Although I did not try, I made a drawing because it was visually so amazing.
 Of course, I had some rum cocktails. They were not greedy about giving rum in your drinks. You will feel once you have these guys. So watch out!
 This is what I ate on an evening. The grilled fish was absolutely amazing.
 Jeff, My friend's dad asked me if I ever went to an Aussie restaurant. I said I only had been to Outback Steak House. He laughed because it was an American owned restaurant and the guy actually has never been to Australia! So, I went to an Australian restaurant in Grand Cayman for the first time. I did not try but my friend ordered Kangaroo kabob and sausage. Adrianne said the sausage was great. Of course, I liked the way it looked, haha.
And she ordered fillet mignon for main course.
                                          And I had grilled Mahi-mahi and shrimps with mashed potatoes.
 Another great meal that I had was Cajun lobster in Cayman style. The lobster was cooked so well with the cajun sauce and the vegetables and black bean rice was great. My mouth gets watery even to think about it, haha.
This was one of my lunch I had in George Town. This is the last piece I made from foods I ate in Cayman Island. From coming week, I started to draw things I eat in my normal life. I originally thought about 100 days of what I eat. I have had about 30 days down now. I will see what I want to do after 100 days. This might continue or I might move to something else. Stay in tuned how my project goes!