The 2021 Politics of the Kitchen Exhibition

The 2021 Politics of the Kitchen Exhibition by Aline SmithsonApril 18, 2021

©Luisa Hübner, kitchen, Vienna/Austria @lui.sa.huebner

Thank you to our wonderful jurors and week-long editors, Barbara Ciurej and Lindsay Lochman, for bringing us insightful and fascinating projects about what we put on the table. Today we feature 35 selections from a myriad of submissions. We appreciate seeing all of your work .

“We savored the entries to the Politics of the Kitchen open call. It became clear to us that jurying and selecting work is like cooking — tasting and adjusting for the right combination of flavors to make a satisfying exhibition. With appreciation to all who submitted work, we thank you for inviting us into the politics of your kitchens.” —jurors, Barbara Ciurej and Lindsay Lochman

Barbara Ciurej and Lindsay Lochman are photographic collaborators. As an extension of their long-term examination of the domestic realm, their current work addresses climate change, consumption and connection through food. @barbandlindsaycollaborate

Highlights for each juror include:

Barbara Ciurej: Luisa Huebner’s simple transparent plate, the carrier of sustenance, takes on rich meanings for me in this photograph. It becomes a window through which we observe an intimate act, a frame for the subject to look through, a comment on domestic labor, a hunger implied, an appetite questionably sated as the pink tongue licks the plate clean.

©Joshua Haunschild, Migrant Jug with Asparagus and Green Onions (from Salton Sea Drainage Basin), Tempe, AZ IG: @haunsjoshchild

Lindsay Lochman: Joshua Haunschild’s still life reminded me of earlier in the week when I pulled a wheel barrow full of onions out of my garden. I smelled the green and the dirt, and it was glorious. Migrant Jug with Asparagus and Green Onions transcends the daily grind we have been slogging through for the past year. As Memento Vivere, this image reminds us to breath deep and embrace the sharp smell of new life.

©Joan Fitzsimmons, Small & Large Thoughts.167, Hamden, CT, IG:@joanfitzsimmonsphotography With Small & Large Thoughts artifacts of daily life pass unnoticed until a simple bowl of yogurt suggests a stroke of paint and the history of art is revealed. This series began with an observation after lunch. My emptied bowl of yogurt resembled the remnants of a painter’s palette. Reflecting on that artform’s centuries of practice. I began shooting. Then I noticed my spoons, evidencing decay, the inevitable entropy of life.

©Joy Bush, Tortured Tomato, Hamden, CT IG: @joybushphotography

©Anne Berry, Sapelo Island Red Peas, Sapelo Island, GA, IG: @a_n_n_e_b_e_r_r_y These Red Peas are grown from dried peas that were first brought from Africa by slaves who worked on plantations on Sapelo Island. The Historical Farming Project is reviving this heirloom crop and bringing jobs to the Island.

6_Randy Matusow, Orthodox girl with matzah

©Randy Matusow, Orthodox Girl With Matzah, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, IG: @RandyMatusowPhoto

©Barrie Lynn Bryant, Domestic Arrangements: Love Lunch IG: @BarrieLynnBryant

©Ashley Miller, Moldy Bread, C-Print, Olympia WA IG: @ash___mill

10_Jane Waggoner Deschner_from the remember me series_(MAJC)

©Jane Waggoner Deschner, “from the remember me series (105. MAJC),” hand-embroidered found studio portrait proofs taken in LaPorte, Indiana, Muralcraft Studios IG: @janedeschner1/

©Sonia Melnikova-Raich, Kitchen on Break, San Francisco, CA, IG:@soniamelnikovaraich

©William Mark Sommer, Untitled, California, Film Photograph, IG:@williammarksommer

©Alex Djordjevic, meal, Vladicin Han, Serbia IG: @alexdjordjevicphotos

©Carl Young, Crossed the Road, Santa Monica, CA IG: @cyoung295

©Benjamin Dimmitt, Size Matters, NYC, NY IG:@benjamin_dimmitt_photography Gelatin silver print

©Alexa Frangos, Pineapple Upside Down Cake, Chicago, IL IG: @alexafrangos

©Rebecca Memoli, Willow and Chicken Feet from series Vessels, Chicago, IL IG: @rebecca_memoli

©Daniele Longo, Radicchio or?, Arco, Italy

©Bridget Conn, Missing Piece #2, Hand-colored inkjet print on tea bag paper, mounted on wood; IG: @bridgetconn

©Fritz Liedtke, Alex, from Skeleton in the Closet, Polaroid and text, Portland, Oregon IG: @fritzphoto1

©Matt Roberts, Trashed, Montclair, NJ

©Adrienne Catanese, Peaches (from In Absentia), Long Island NY @adrienne_catanese_photo In Absentia is a photographic series about trauma and survival. In 1998, at age 14, I was raped by a 21-year-old who groomed me and my friends in early internet chat rooms. In this work, meticulous still life and archival material combine to form a narrative of my rape; from a place of safety and power, I process held sense memories using objects as surrogates. Surreal images evoke the cognitive sensations of traumatic memory, and the lawless nowhere-ness of the early internet. In Absentia’s visual depictions of trauma suggest a sort of dream logic: nothing is as it should be, and I cannot seem to awake.

©Lauren Grabelle, Maggie & The Deer Bigfork, MT @laurengrabelle

© JP Terlizzi, Working for Peanuts, Created all in camera and inspired by the abrupt shifts brought on by the pandemic, the image is from a larger body of work that represents the delicate balance and continuous struggle to find stability during an uncertain time. New York, NY IG: @jpterlizzi