Between Kitchens
Sasha Ioffe
The food we eat and mealtimes we share are formulated by our lived experiences. Each recipe, menu, or dish is created out of necessity, tradition, and ritual. The Slavic food that we eat at home has traveled through continents and decades of these lived experiences. It has adapted and morphed, evolving from a Soviet domestic tradition, through assimilation into a new country, and into an immigrant household that preserves a cultural blend of memory and inheritance.
Between Kitchens is a table installation exploring the meals experienced by generations of my Belarussian family and the layered historical, familial, and cultural contexts surrounding them. A series of four large hardcover books depict distinct place settings around a dining table, each illustrated with different mediums representing where they live in time and place. A smaller book grounds these meals in our history, providing the background of the food we have grown so used to. The books rest atop a hand-knit table runner that binds the project in tradition.
Take a seat, share a meal, and discover how our memories shape our relationship to the food we consume and our cultural identity, immersing yourself in the shared ritual of the table.