How can culture intersect with creativity? Third-year fine arts and business ARBUS student, Andrew Little, found an answer when curating Starving, his food-themed art exhibition. The exhibition was on display from June 22 to June 26 in the Artery, coordinated by UW’s Society of Fine Arts (SOFA).
Curator Andrew Little with his work, “Together,” at the Starving exhibition. (Photo Credit: Zoey Pearce)
“This was my first time [curating] totally alone, which was super exciting and exhilarating,” Little said. The exhibit’s theme of blending food, social belonging, and cultural identities together came to him from a discussion about what defines society with Maya Magalii, his roommate and SOFA’s marketing coordinator. “We determined that food is one of the key components of culture, enculturation, belonging, and community. Food is usually the epicentre of all of these things,” he said.
Little’s curatorship process began with pitching his exhibit idea to SOFA’s committee. Once Little received approval, he contacted artists whose work he believed would embody the power of food as a cultural symbol of identity. He also coordinated with SOFA’s social media team to open submissions for other artists interested in participating.
“Each of these pieces almost acts as a glimpse into different people’s lives, in the way that they choose to eat or not eat,” he explained. Little chose artwork by 10 UW student artists to be featured in the gallery, including his own installation. His sculpture of assembled objects is meant to highlight the shared experience from eating a meal with a loved one. “A sense of community and love are the two most important things to me. I try to incorporate them into literally everything that I do,” Little shared. He encourages others to savour those moments more often.
Third-year sexualities, relationships, and families and fine arts student Dani Ball also brings this feeling into her own work. Ball combined her love of art and animals by creating crocheted pieces and copper plate printings of lobsters for the exhibit. “[Making art] is something I do to connect with myself … that gives me meaning in life, makes me happy, and I like sharing it with other people,” she said.
Ball also emphasized the importance of supporting artists in a world increasingly saturated by generative AI and made her stance on the matter clear: “Human-made art is the only art that should be made!”
The exhibit’s diversity continued with Lohgan Hopkins’s collage, which he describes as a bold juxtaposition between homemade meals and their origins. Hopkins is a third-year fine arts student who aims to finish 100 collages by the end of summer. “At this point in my life, [art] feels like a kind of exploration,” he stated. “Just letting my mind wander, letting yourself be, not molding yourself too early, and just feeling free to explore, whether it’s [with] colour, [technique], or medium.”
Cheyenne Hussey and her piece, “Consume”. (Photo credit: Zoey Pearce)
For third-year fine arts student Cheyenne Hussey, that freedom of self-expression is a key part of visual art. Each section of her four-quadrant acrylic painting serves as visual commentary on the oppression of capitalism and consumerism in modern society. That burden is also keenly felt in the UW fine arts program, Hussey said. “[The fine arts program] is a little underfunded … it can be really frustrating, but I think when we have something as beautiful as this [come] out … it proves why people are wrong [about that] all the time,” Hussey expressed.
Exploring, in her words, “the line between surrealism and body horror in sculpture,” second-year fine arts and French student Paige Bannon created three sculptures: a foot-shaped banana, a bell pepper ribcage, and a tooth-shaped apple out of clay and acrylic.
Paige Bannon’s sculpture, “The market sale”. (Photo Credit: Zoey Pearce)
In line with the exhibit’s exploration of how food transforms individual experiences into collective ones, artist Sarah Soohyun Cheon also focused on community and care through food. She created a fish sculpture from leftover pieces of focaccia bread and a baguette from Elora Bread Trading Co. Her piece explores the “labour of love, as well as a transfer of energy.” involved in baking and feeding others.
The wide variety of artistic visions showcased is a welcome sight to Little. He believes each piece accurately reflects the power of food as an embodiment of identity, since “the concept of culture is in and of itself [and] is very diverse.”
Other artists who participated in the exhibit include Jazmin Barrett, Claire MacMillan, Ailah Kaukand, and Seemab Zahra.
