Artist
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Ana Núñez Rodríguez
Ana Núñez Rodríguez studied Documentary Photography and Contemporary Creation at IDEP Barcelona, holds a postgraduate degree in Photography from the National University of Colombia and holds a Master degree in Photography and Society from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KABK) in The Hague. She was part of Lighthouse 2020-21, a program for upcoming talents at Fotodok, Utrecht.
Cooking Potato Stories
What can a potato tell us about ourselves? What does it say about the construction of national identity? What role can new narratives around it play in how a society imagines itself and other worlds? How can translocal stories and food cultures be connected as an inroad to address forgotten colonial legacies and the wider context of political, social, and emotional relationships?These are some of the questions that lead to the harvesting of stories around the potato that forms Cooking Potato Stories.
This work has its roots in the tension between personal and social identity and the historical and cultural influences on its formation. Using the role of the potato as a conductive narrative, I question the power structures behind the construction of identity, based on my own experience moving between Latin America and Europe. It is a transatlantic recipe that mixes the "here" and "there", which includes different ingredients such as heritage, history, imaginary, tradition and autobiography to reflect on how a society imagines itself and other worlds based in the stories they tell each other.
We all make sense of our lives through a combination of narratives, a blurred system of ideas that inspires reactions, determines values, judgments, opinions and behaviors. Today a region does not necessarily have to be a space defined politically or geographically, but a specific space for common stories and experiences, a state of mind rather than a place on the map. Therefore, finding our place means finding our place in a story and where the plot of these photographs intersect is where my place is located. I propose an encounter of narratives around the potato that grows an alternative story that questions the ideologies, power and subjectivities behind the narratives. I develop recipes of knowledge that unfold different aspects of the potato's history to push a new social memory about it. Cooking Potato Stories drives us in the complex process of how we construct, understand and make sense of ourselves individually and as a collective.
Thana Faroq’s most recent work How Shall We Greet The Sun comprises a series of portraits and writing that reflects on the photograph’s ambiguity, power, and inabilities, offering viewers an unprecedented insight into the inner lives of women in exile. Faroq is also nominated by FOTODOK.
Gita Cooper-van Ingen’s work is informed by (female) subjective perspectives and how they relate to larger cultural, and aesthetic discourses. Her Models of Being an Accessory project traces patterns in the visual representation of women posing with iconic handbags.
Tina Faritfeh’s research engages with stories of migration, empathy, borders and bodies. In The Flood, a 4-channel video installation, Faritfeh questions how metaphors
linked to water have been used to dehumanise migrants and refugees.
Mafalda Rakoš’ Stop and Go project looks into Europe and its future through the highway system. Her practice spans film, still photography and text - but is also marked by performative and anthropological methodologies.
Finally, Cooking Potato Stories by Ana Nuñez Rodriguez asks: What can a potato tell us about ourselves? Through a mixture of delicately layered photography and archival media, Nuñez Rodriguez invites her viewers into the rich and entangled history of the potato plant.