Ramiro Wong, Notes on Displacement, 2023–24
mixed media (vulcanised fibre, raffia, wicker, cellulose based paper, plaster, porcelain plates and cups, stainless steel cutlery, food residue, epoxy resin)
Four objects, at various places in the exhibition
Courtesy of the artist
Food as sustenance. Food as nourishment. Food as cultural identity. Food as community maker. Food as a link to roots and heritage. For many people, the act of preparing and sharing their traditional food among the community is often lost with migration as a disruption of communities.
Notes on Displacement is a series of works combining performance, sculpture and site-specific installation. The protocol relies on cooking and serving food in the exhibition space to the visitors. For each iteration, a specific menu is designed and cooked. After dinner, dishes are packed and stored in suitcases. The suitcases are placed in the exhibition space, remaining the only traces of both a communal moment and a signal of displacement.
The artworks in this series explore the impact of displacement on cultural identity and the resilient acts associated with the archival of memory. On one side, the artist attempts to preserve cultural food traditions literally in suitcases as symbolic blocks of “ice”. On the other, he acknowledges the impossibility of preserving taste as the epitome of a singular identity. Creating menus produced with locally sourced ingredients implies that the original taste has vanished, but enough of it is preserved so as to trigger the memory of the original. Thus, from the sculptures that include traditional cooking utensils to the site-specific installation that showcases the ingredients and spices, each piece tells a unique story of displacement and food.
Ramiro Wong (b. 1987, Lima, PE) is a research-based artist living and working between Vienna, AT, and Lima, PE. He is interested in translation, representation, and the politics/policies of invisibilization as imprinted and narrativized onto the languages of contemporary art as a system of oppression within a system of oppression. In both its time-based iterations and object-based aftermath, his work is not meant to illustrate a circumstance, but to trigger an action – prompting a conversation in which each participant becomes witness to the experience of the other.
Wong studied at the University of Applied Arts in the TransArts class with Nita Tandon. His work has been displayed internationally in MALI, Lima, PE; Museum Q’orikancha, Cusco, PE; Belvedere 21, Vienna, AT; and Dom Museum Wien, Vienna, AT.
