Brainfood
(2014)

At first glance, it is not clear what the three brown-white structures coming into the picture are meant to represent. On closer inspection and based on their shape and the deep recesses at eye level, they can soon be identified as skulls. And the mystery of what the skulls are made of is also resolved over time. First, there are individual movements that can be identified in the rhythm of the music until finally, when the first green seedlings emerge, it becomes clear that it must be something organic. One after the other, an increasingly lush green splendour shoots up on the top of the skull and, regarding the title of the animated video, indicates that this is ‘brainfood’, meaning food for the brain.

The raw material for the sculptural skull are Chilean ‘Porotos Señoritas’ (‘Young Lady Beans’), which the Spanish artist Antoni Miralda photographed during their germination throughout the course of a month. Strung together and played back in time-lapse, the video consisting of over 3000 photos not only shows the growth of a crop plant that has always been firmly anchored in Latin American civilization, but also refers to the eternal cycle of becoming and passing away in nature.

Miralda, who artistically implemented “Brainfood” for FoodCultura in 2014, describes this context and the connection to the Vanitas tradition on the FoodCultura project website as follows: “The beans symbolize the pulse of life and death as the seed within the never-ending cycle of death and rebirth. Beans are a traditional crop from the New World. Prior to colonization –and to this day– these legumes constitute the basis of most Latin American and Caribbean diets. Different types of beans are also present in the mythical foundations of various pre-Colombian societies as a major food ingredient.”

“Brainfood” was first presented as a part of “Vanitas”, a still life video-installation at the exhibition FOOD at SESC Pinheiros, Sao Paulo, Brazil, in February 2014. Referencing the visual memento mori of the Spanish baroque, and composed by the bean skulls, as well as collected McDonald's waste, the reliquary reunited both the most sophisticated and the most superficial elements of the city. The physical remains of “Brainfood” are now planted in the campo santo or vegetable garden of the cemetery of Barcelona’s Sant Pau del Camp Romanesque church, continuing their life and death germination cycle.

FoodCultura is a private, non-profit foundation which was founded in Barcelona in 2007 by the artist Antoni Miralda and chef Montse Guillén. It was conceived as a structure or platform from which food culture can be presented and reassessed not only from the perspective of eating or nutrition, but also from the perspective of artistic praxis and anthropological research.

Nadja Zeller