[Food is a universal language]
May 10th 2024- July 7th 2024

About the ‘Hungry, Thirsty’ art show:

Food is more than sustenance; it's a powerful language that connects us all. The art show, "Hungry, Thirsty" explores how food and drink shape our lives, foster connections, and spark introspection. 

“Hungry, Thirsty” delves into themes of vulnerability, nourishment and community. Food & drink act as a language, shaping our own experiences and those around us. Some questions include how food influences our self-awareness, brings people together and connects generations through culinary traditions.

Monet Oganesian, Dalar Alahverdi, Tamara Arzumanova, Katayoun Bahrami, and Badri Valian

Between the Skillet, Dough, and Herbs?, 2024

Video Installation

Collective Statement:

Cooking bonds people, uplifts our spirits, and strengthens our identities. It is a unifying act across many cultures that continues to build the contemporary social fabric. This daily ritual sets the scene for transparency of language, loud collectivity of steam, stirring, scents, tears, and laughter. This action re-sparks memories and nourishes the soul and the belly. Between the Skillet, Dough and Herbs? is an act of cross-diasporan connectivity. We are strangers who met one Wednesday night to spark our memories of our grandmothers and fry-up some Jingalov Hats, a native Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) dish.

My installation will be up until April 6th, 2023.

Installation:
Encapsulating a Paradox is part of Monet’s ongoing project between relationships with organic and inorganic materials. Her series encapsulates, in tiny vials/tubes, the world we live in through various materials that create friction with each other and between human connections. With friction comes flow; I believe nature always prevails because it flows.

This installation focuses on the aftermath culmination of various human pleasures disrupting the earth’s ozone layer and increased pollution. While these pleasures may be of human necessity or bring human joy, at the same time, creates unpleasurable consequences on this earth where we live. She encapsulates this idea in vials with a painted gold cork and a video visual of photographs she took during skies polluted days. The vials are stuffed with trash and found materials. Monet invites you to surround yourself visually and physically through this paradoxical relationship between humans and nature.