PEACE AT THE TABLES
‘Paz En Las Mesas’
FOOD OF WAR COLLECTIVE
MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, BOGOTA, COLOMBIA
2020
COMMONWEALTH // 1910 CRICKET BAT & 300 SPOONS // This piece is from a body of work referring to the financial, industrial and infrastructural gains to Britain from sugar, slavery and the West Indies from 1655-1834 and the subsequent infrastructure of the empire. These works look at the relationship between commonplace objects found in the U.K. and a history of slavery and exploitation. The wealth amassed from the exploitation of African slaves and Caribbean resources remains embedded in modern Britain and is visible in the architecture of our cities, the cultural abundance of our museums, the ports and canals of our industrial centres and the configuration of our economy.
“The exhibition title Peace at the Table conjures a multitude of images and as a phrase often evokes its antithesis, it speaks also of the chaos beyond the table. It suggests a moment in which the domestic setting acts as an island safeguarded from the turbulent surrounding oceans, the storms and tsunamis beyond. It implies to achieve peace we must be willing to share intimacy, to eat together, to use the same utensils, to breath the same air, to be in the same place at the same time. This is a beautiful idea but in order to eat together, first we must know where the meal is taking place, we must be able to access transport to reach that location, we must understand each other’s languages to share stories, we must be tolerant to the same foods, to share the flavours, we must be equally able-bodied to sit beside each other at a level and we must not be intimated by our neighbours, to feel we can sit beside them.”