Art between mouth and food, body weight and words weight

Description

The English translation of the collective work Art Between Mouth and Food, Body Weight and the Weight of the Word has been released.
The book is available in ebook format, translated by Anna Venerosa.

The Beginning of Food and the Relational Grammar at the Table

I ate alone. Except on Sundays. They would leave my plate ready on the corner of the table next to the window. The bottle of water in front of the circular emptiness of the glass. The crumbs on the tablecloth like a metaphysical sowing of bread. The others in the family had already risen, the older men gone to lie down, the women in the kitchen washing, drying, storing leftovers in the fridge. On Sundays, all together, in front of an abundance of food, they spoke of clients, of work, of doing. I remained silent.

anna maria farabbi

Excerpts from the text

Eating alone, in my view, does not in itself generate any lack or sense of incompleteness. The crux of my reflection lies in how one eats when together. What is the substance of communication around the table. Which words. Which intentions, tensions, expectations lie behind words and behind silence. To what extent, and if, the ceremonial energy of sharing and the awareness of the preciousness of food are maintained. How much we make food signify as a fundamental communicative, generative link between our small “I” and the great “We,” understood as ecosystem.

The body of the suffering person, their tongue (which naturally belongs to their body), carries out a social subtraction, more or less consciously. They are seemingly present in the world, yet inwardly withdrawn. Wounded. The gradual retreat manifests precisely in the relationship between food and tongue, in a ritual practice of abstention, of refusal of contact: watching and observing with a defensive and self-protective tension.

Notes on the curator

Anna Maria Farabbi published with Al3vie in 2021 Louise Michel, è che il potere è maledetto e per questo io sono anarchica and Il canto dell’altalena. L’oscillazione della figura tra il gioco e il mito followed by La tela di Penelope, a work co-published with Pièdimosca edizioni. For Kaba edizioni she published in 2013 Caro diario azzurro. She collaborated with the Leggimileggi project and directs the series Gocce, in which her work La notte fosforescente was published.

Publication notes:
The book is available in print and ebook format in Italian, and will soon also be available in English.