Cooking Potato Stories
Ana Núñez Rodríguez
PhotoIreland
English
Softcover – unbound newsprint
28 pages
350 x 500 mm
2022
ISBN Not Available
This was published on occasion of PhotoIreland Festival 2021.
What can a potato tell us about ourselves? What does it say about the construction of national identity? What role can new narratives about the potato play in creating expanded social imaginaries? How can trans-local stories and food cultures be connected as an inroad to address forgotten colonial legacies and the wider context of political, social, and emotional relationships?
The history of the potato is marked by many obstacles to its adaptation and acceptance as a food crop: a long process of transformation, throughout which, many conflicts, beliefs and traditions stood in its way. Attending this long journey and process of adaptation reveals some ways that plants have served us in manifestations of our power over nature and other people. Here, this will serve to open a conversation about identity, politics, and some of the difficulties that must be overcome when adapting to new contexts and the forms of power that are within. The potato packs a universe of symbolic information on identity, domination and social differentiation that the artist put to use here to reflect on the effects of colonisation on our subjectivities, knowledge production and critical thinking.
Cooking Potato Stories a multi-layered trans-local story that follows the routes and roots of the potato through the context of Galicia, Colombia, and The Netherlands. Published on occasion of PhotoIreland Festival 2021, artist Ana Núñez Rodríguez expanded on the current collection of stories to include those from Ireland. She has worked with a number of participants in an exchange of stories, as well as gathering archival images, articles, and written stories from Irish history.
(source: https://www.thelibraryproject.ie/collections/international-art-books/products/bird-billy-kenrick-artist-book-edition)
About the Artist
Ana Núñez Rodríguez is a photographer based between Europe and Colombia. Her work delves into the politics of identity, connecting her own experience of navigating between both cultural realities with other voices. Through the use of images, she establish new forms of collaboration and knowledge production that interrogate the impacts of collective memory and cultural heritage on identity.
ananunezrodriguez.com
(source: https://ananunezrodriguez.com/About-1)
