Survival Japanese Cooking
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In this multi-layered exhibition, Shié Kasai takes a closer look at the role that food plays in cultural identity and the immigrant experience. She explores the translation of Japanese food through a Canadian context. Having been away from Japan since 1998, she experiments with re-creating the foods from her homeland with the popular ingredients of her new home. In her witty visual translation of food from one culture to another, she examines the question of what Canadian food is and how we as culture are identified through it. The works in Survival Japanese Cooking were displayed as part of a larger exhibition with MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels) in 2008. In Kasai’s exhibition catalogue, Zoë Chan writes: “Survival Japanese Cooking also stems from the artist’s own passion for food and her delight in its surrounding culture (markets, restaurants, lunch specials, menus, and so on)”. With a healthy dash of humor and a great sense of artistry, Shié Kasai finds herself “re-constructing” sushi from Canadian foods in a bold new version of her home country’s culinary favorites. In the melting pot process, she uses such foods as sausages and samosas. In creating this series, Shié Kasai mixes the ideas of exoticism and familiarity by crossing cultures, and constructing “hybrids” of Easter/Western perspectives. On September 26 (the final day of the exhibition), as part of Journées de la culture, arts enthusiast and volunteer Carol Katz will be showing visitors around the gallery. Shié Kasai is a Montreal-based mixed-media artist, whose concepts and imagery have been featured in solo shows, group exhibitions and in residencies. Her work has been exhibited in Montreal, the Netherlands as well as in Japan. She is a profiled-artist for CBC’s ARTSPOTS http://www.cbc.ca/artspots/html/artists/skasai/. Her current art projects can be viewed at www.shiekasai.com |
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