FoodCultura is also an archive and a meeting, consultation and research space dedicated to food culture, anthropology and contemporary art. The FoodCultura Archive is organized in three different parts, but interconnected with each other:
– MIRALDA / FOODCULTURA ARCHIVE:
Documentary archive of the artistic trajectory of Miralda from the sixties to the present. It is made up of graphic, photographic, audiovisual work and documents of various kinds referring both to the work and collective works of Miralda and to the projects carried out by the FoodCultura team. This archive has its own online platform as a database or digital archive: the Stomak Digital.
– FOODCULTURA COLLECTION:
An ethnographic compilation of more than 20,000 objects and graphic material (menus, wrappers, napkins, table mats, posters …) related to food, ritual and popular culture. Much of this material comes from different countries and contains diverse origins and experiences. Beyond a collection, FoodCultura pieces seek to be a kind of archiving the memory of food culture, to write down stories, to generate connections and dialogues between objects and experiences, moving from ritual to design, from consumption to politics.
It was as a result of the Food Pavilion (Expo 2000, Hanover), of which Miralda was the artistic director, when the “FoodCultura” concept was put into practice and a museum or collection “without walls” was formed that included a large set of objects and materials collected over several years of work, as well as a series of files made up of traditional recipes, culinary rituals, artistic interventions, etc. Since then, FoodCultura Collection and its objects have expanded and coincide in exhibitions, workshops, publications, artists’ works, research projects, among others. A recent example is found in JUEMAI. Objects in dialogue, a digital and collective action.
– SANT STOMAK’S LIBRARY:
Bibliographic collection dedicated to the culture of food. It contains books, cookbooks, magazines, fanzines, CDs and memorabilia related to the history and culture of food, gastronomy, festivities and customs, rituals and religion, alicamento (food+medication) , language, art and food design, among other categories that revolve around “FoodCultura” as a concept.
FoodCultura wants to connect the archive and library with an open platform, both digital and physical, of work and reflection. A reflection that can be accompanied by activities and that is aimed at expanding the network or network of collaboration and the creation of new projects from this archive. Therefore, the archive is not only made up of objects and documents, but it is also extended with the actions, artistic projects, relationships and contacts that the network dynamizes.
It is not a file organized in a standard way, it is an archive as work, thought and process. It is a narrative archive rather than a historical or chronological one. It is articulated as reference material, process, work and documentation open to other artists, curators, researchers, designers, cooks, among other disciplines. A project in itself, a living archive that is open for people to work with, reinterpret and add material.
One of the latest collaborations is the agreement established from 2018, between BAU, Centro Universitario de Diseño y FoodCultura, given the common interests in art and design, and the opportunity to build connections in the Poblenou district of Barcelona.
Thanks to this agreement, different university students have developed personal projects linked to the FoodCultura archive and curricular practices aimed at conceptualising and digitising it. An example is Marina Gil Salazar’s Final Master’s Project, Variétes Show. El efecto Burlesque en el archivo de Miralda, a project that proposes looking at the archive of “FoodCultura objects” from the perspective of the burlesque, through play and seduction, and which proposes alternative documentary paths hand in hand with performative imaginary ethnographies. The project was awarded the Matrícula de Honor and the bronze at the Premios ADG Laus de Diseño Gráfico 2019.
Another of the collaborations with BAU has given rise to the agreement of curricular practices with different students of the Degree in Design, carrying out a work of classification and digitization of the collection of “FoodCultura objects” through conceptual categories and the use of the FileMaker Pro platform or database.
Miralda/FoodCultura Archive
Stomak Digital
FoodCultura Collection
FoodCultura Collection
Sant Stomak’s Library
Sant Stomak’s Library