An artistic inquiry into the use of food in a photograph and its implications on cultural meanings

Abstract

When the artist-photographer engages food as a subject matter in a photograph, the perception of the image goes beyond its physicality, thus enabling viewers to associate it with various conceptual and cultural meanings. This practice-led thesis discusses the dual role of food as both a material and subject matter in photographs. The study aims to answer the main question of how the use of food in photographs implicates its cultural meaning. This central question also leads to several sub-research questions: what are the approaches that photographers have taken in order to use food as a material; and in which ways can food be used as an artistic material to convey a sense of culture? This thesis employs the two modes of inquiry developed by Graeme Sullivan (2010): the “Intellectual” and the “Imaginative” mode of inquiry. Through the intellectual mode of inquiry, I examined two key issues: the challenges in using photography as a form of representational art due to the limitations of the camera medium, and whether photographs of food can ever be considered as fine art. This background research eventually served as contextual materials for my photo experiments where I developed a series of experimental photos using food as an artistic material. “Old is Gold” is the final series of experimental images that records my photographic journey in experimenting with the materiality of expired bread, inviting viewers to contemplate the materiality of expired food in photographs and to identify possible associations to any cultural meanings while consuming them visually and literally.