● Kitchen of Nomad 2020

Kitchen of Nomad in Suao

Video & Installation, 2020

Single‭ ‬Channel Video with sound

Installation, Variable size

<Kitchen of Nomad> is a record of a party where they visited various parts of Taiwan and invited local residents to cook and share Korean and Taiwanese food together. Since food and culture are closely connected to each other in a relationship, a specific food or space for making and sharing food is often directly connected with a person's roots or life story.

This work is an exploration of the aesthetics of relationships, that is, interpersonal relationships and the social/cultural gap, and the relationship between food and identity. In addition, everyday cooking in the private daily space of the kitchen brought into the art museum a community experience that is formed around migration, immigration, and conversations about their relationship.

I recently completed two series <Kitchen of Nomad: Deonjang Soup> and <Kitchen of Nomad: In Suao>.

This work was carried out in 2020 in Suao, Yilan, east of Taiwan, and is an extension of <Kitchen of Nomad: Deonjang Soup>, which has been held since 2018 in Taitung, Hualien and Taipei Botanical Gardens. In the kitchen of 7 locals, we shared the food prepared by the chef and Korean food made by myself, and recorded a kind of collaboration cooking event that shares the history and culture of the region through private food stories. Finally, I installed a portable kitchen and a flower tower in the local temple with a video of the cooking event.

Each time, I tried to prepare Korean food that goes well with the food introduced by the locals. And I tried to use different local dishes or locally produced ingredients for each food as much as possible. Using unfamiliar ingredients is a challenge to her and an attempt to promote a new culture to locals. I believe that a single food blended with familiar and unfamiliar things resembles the colour, taste and aroma contained in the story of mankind that collide and fuse in the history of migration and migration.

Also in Suao, I found numerous towers on the road or where I stayed; Items piled up on the market, pebbles piled up on the beach, food and utensils piled up in the restaurant showcases, sacrificial foods piled up at temple altars, foods piled up in bowls, plates, trays and colanders. I think, in the cups, dishes, plates, trays and colanders we use in our daily lives,' there are many human times, stories and memories connected with food. The history and culture accumulated for a long time are reflected in the stories. 'The Flower Tower' is a symbolic object that contains the wishes and wishes that the stories, memories, and lives contained there are beautiful and happy.

In history, humans have migrated according to political and economic circumstances, and plants have migrated with human migration. Plants are interpreted and used differently depending on where humans live (mountain, sea, city). If we recall the words of exile, refugee, immigration and shelter, when humans are in a barren situation, they use a wider variety of plants in a variety of ways. Humans sometimes use plants as food, sometimes as medicine, sometimes as tools, and sometimes as building materials. In this way, humans make a culture with plants, or plants change human life and culture. As such, humans move and migrate during their lives for many reasons, whether intentional or unintentional. When life moves from place to place, language and cultural change, as well as wearing, eating, and sleeping, change from daily life. Through the kitchen space, i experience and observe directly or indirectly the process of adapting to the environment. Here, the moving kitchen is an object that represents herself (the life of a moving artist) and symbolises the migration of a human being.