Join curator Christine Eyene at the Jodrell Lecture Theatre, Kew Gardens, on Saturday 4 March from 2.00 pm to 3.30 pm for a conversation between her and artists Cooking Sections as part of Orchids – Kew Gardens’ annual orchid festival which 2023 edition is inspired by the biodiversity of Cameroon.
Cooking Sections and Christine Eyene. Rights Reserved.
The curator and artists will present their research and practice dealing with botanical histories in Britain, Cameroon and beyond, from a decolonial perspective. They will also discuss critical artistic and curatorial practices engaging with nature, rural communities, knowledge sharing, sustainability, as well as issues around land ownership.
Christine Eyene is an art historian and curator. She is a Lecturer in Contemporary Art at Liverpool John Moores University and Research Curator at Tate Liverpool. She is also completing her PhD in Art History at Birkbeck, University of London.
Eyene is the founder of Bikoka Art Project, a new initiative developed in the village of Bikoka in Lolodorf (Cameroon), to provide creative and professional opportunities to young people and women. Through this project, she is also embarking on new research into Lolodorf’s history, traditional knowledge, natural environment, and contemporary culture.
In the context of Orchids, she is currently presenting Portrait of a Community – Features of a Land, a photographic display by Cameroonian artist Yvon Ngassam, depicting the people and landscapes of Lolodorf. She also curated a soundscape with field recordings by Ngassam and compositions by sound artist Elsa M’bala.
Christine Eyene has organised exhibitions internationally. She is currently artistic director of the Biennale Internationale de Casablanca (2022-2023). In 2021-2022 she was on the selection committee of The London Open 2022 (Whitechapel Gallery), Jerwood/Photoworks Awards 2022, and member of jury of the Turner Prize 2022.
Cooking Sections examines the systems that organise the world through food. Using site-responsive installation, performance, and video, they explore the overlapping boundaries between art, architecture, ecology and geopolitics. Established in London in 2013 by Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe, their practice uses food as a lens and a tool to observe landscapes in transformation. They have worked on multiple iterations of the long-term site-responsive CLIMAVORE project since 2015, exploring how to eat as humans change climates. In 2016 they opened The Empire Remains Shop.
Their work has been exhibited at Tate Britain, Serpentine Galleries, SALT, Bonniers Konsthall, Lafayette Anticipations, Grand Union, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Atlas Arts, HKW, Storefront for Art and Architecture; the Taipei Biennial, 58th Venice Biennale, Istanbul Biennial, Cleveland Triennial, Shanghai Biennial, Los Angeles Public Art Triennial, Sharjah Architecture Triennial, Sharjah Art Biennial, Performa17, Manifesta12, and New Orleans Triennial among others. They have been residents at Headlands Center for the Arts, California; and The Politics of Food at Delfina Foundation, London. They are part of British Art Show 9. They lead a studio unit at the Royal College of Art, London, and were guest professors at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich.
Cooking Sections were nominated for the Turner Prize in 2021. They were awarded the Special Prize at the 2019 Future Generation Art Prize and were nominated for the Visible Award for socially-engaged practices. Daniel is the recipient of the 2020 Harvard GSD Wheelwright Prize for Being Shellfish.
For more information, please visit Kew Gardens.
