In Cooking Potato Stories, the Spanish photographer explores the cultural and historical connections between Europe and Latin America, collecting images and stories about tubers.
What can a potato tell us about ourselves? What does he say about the construction of national identity? What role might new narratives about her play in the way society imagines itself and other worlds? How can interlocal histories and food cultures be linked as a way to address forgotten colonial legacies and the wider context of political, social and emotional relations?
The potato is a way to connect to the collective consciousness and speak for oneself, a means to reflect on the complexities of identity construction. Using the role of the potato as a narrative narrative, I question the power structures behind the construction of identity, based on my experience moving between Latin America and Europe. Cooking Potato Stories is a transatlantic recipe that mixes ‘here’ and ‘there’, incorporating ingredients as diverse as heritage, history, imagination, tradition and autobiography to reflect how society imagines itself and other worlds based on the stories it tells. tell each other. .
We all make sense of our lives through a combination of narratives, a vague system of ideas that inspires reactions and determines values, judgments, opinions, and behaviors. Today a region should not necessarily be a politically or geographically defined space, but a specific space for shared history and experiences, a state of mind more than a place on the map. Therefore, to find our place is to find our place in a story. I propose an encounter of trans-local stories around the potato that fosters an alternative history that questions the ideologies, power and subjectivities behind the narratives. I develop knowledge recipes that unfold different aspects of the potato’s history to foster a new collective social memory around it.
Words and photos from Ana Núñez Rodriguez
Ana Núñez Rodríguez studied Documentary Photography and Contemporary Creation at IDEP Barcelona and received a postgraduate degree in Photography from the National University of Colombia. She graduated with honors from the Master of Photography and Society at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague (NL). She was part of Lighthouse 2020-21, a program for future talents at Fotodok, Utrecht (NL). She has been nominated for FUTURES 2022 by Der Greif. Follow him Instagram AND PhMuseum.
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This feature is part of Story of the Week, a selection of relevant projects from our community handpicked by the PhMuseum curators.
