Isabella Giancarlo
Eat Your
Heart Out
2016
Interactive Photo Series
Response
Love at first sight. Or is it love
at first bite? Food and feelings are highly intertwined in various ways,
whether it’s a cake associated with happiness and celebration, or a homecooked
stew that evoke warmth and nostalgia. I was attracted to this piece at first because
of its vibrant colours, and pleasant visuals (also because who can possibly resist
desserts?), but was further drawn in when I realised the jarring contrast of
breakup phrases on sweet treats. I chose this crowdsourced online photo series
also because I thought as a form of Web Art, it was emblematic of how art forms
are evolving today. It is important to note that this piece was done as part of
an Instagram-based project by the artist herself – hence it will be good to
view it the entire collection in full at https://www.instagram.com/eatyrheartsout/
to better comprehend and further understand the nuances behind food, dating and
creation as rituals.
Description
Eat
Your Heart Out is a photo series that juxtaposes the ugly, terrible things
people say baked into beautiful treats, creating a disorientating if not
eye-catching artwork. At cursory glance, these photos might seem like typical
#foodporn images we see on social media platforms such as Instagram, a trend
where photographers over-glamourize the visual representation of food. Inspired
by her own personal breakup, Giancarlo decided to give a whole new meaning to
“eating your feelings”, by encouraging audiences worldwide to participate in
the artwork and submit their own breakup stories to her via social media, and paying
an edible homage to heartache and agony. Instead of following the cardinal Rule
of Thirds or varying angles, lighting, layout and background to incorporate
dynamism in her shoots, I found it interesting that Giancarlo chose to shoot
all her desserts uniformly in a neutral, point-blank style. Noteworthily, desserts
and photographs are also made and shot in a somewhat messy, amateurish fashion.
Analysis
and Interpretation
Firstly, this series is evidently a
play on the tendency of people to turn to food as a form of solace following a
breakup. While the meaning of food changes depending on the culture and the
context, sweet treats are almost universal in their commemoration of joy,
celebration and milestones, and in the same vein we can use it to inject some
happiness after a particularly distressing event such as the death of a
relationship. “Don’t let those breakup phrases and clichés consume you” –
conversely, Giancarlo wants to empower her audience, to rally them around the
universality of heartbreak, to “devour and consume the words that cause us pain”
(Scott, 2016). As much as it is part therapy as it is artwork, Eat Your Heart Out allows us to confront
those uncomfortable, ugly feelings that we keep locked away after a breakup.
Secondly, Giancarlo’s choice of
Instagram as a platform to showcase and allow audiences from all over the world
to interact with her artwork, and participate in the creation of it makes the
entire process even more intimate and collaborative. By rallying people from
all age, sex, race and culture together, the audience will realise that
heartbreak is not something confined to any demographic or boundary, and
eventually foster solidarity in overcoming this emotionally-taxing period.
Next, by keeping layout and angles
the same throughout the photographs Giancarlo creates, and to good effect – a
static feeling that reflects the emptiness and awkwardness that lingers after a
relationship ends. Rather than going for a pristine, polished look, the sloppy
smear of blueberry and sprinkles left haphazardly on the table also reflects
the mess, turmoil, and unaddressed feelings that characterise the end of many
relationships.
Evaluation
and Judgment
While seemingly vacuous on first
look, reminiscent of the #foodporn photos we see online, Giancarlo’s pieces are
surprisingly layered and complex, exploring notions of memory, loss and
appetite (Giancarlo, 2016). Perhaps her use of Instagram, besides helping to
reach out to a wider audience and also to make contemporary art more accessible
to the general public, was also a tongue-in-cheek jab at the transactional and
exhibitionistic nature relationships on social media have taken on nowadays. With
social media allowing for the public expression, storage and replication of
sentiments and memories once considered privy only to the parties in the
relationship, romance may have been repackaged and commodified for a 21st
century audience, changing the way we view and treat relationships.
On another level, Giancarlo’s use
of food as a medium of art could also be a bold declaration to challenge
popular perception that food cannot be art. As Deresciewicz and Tefler puts it,
food is not art because it is “not narrative or representational, neither does
it express ideas or organise emotions” (Meskin, 2013). With contemporary works blurring
the lines between medium and art, and the production and consumption of art, we
need to continuously re-evaluate the meaning and role of art in relation to society
and the human condition. Is food art only because of its virtue in belonging to
another art form like sculpture, or in this case, photography? Now, I think that
is definitely some food for thought.
References
Giancarlo, I.
(2016). Eat Your Heart Out. Retrieved
from: http://www.isabellagiancarlo.com/eat-your-heart-out
Meskin, A.
(2013). The Art and Aesthetics of Food.
University of Warwick. Retrieved from: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/research/priorities/foodsecurity/themes/eatingwell/meskin_the_aesthetics_of_food_new1.pdf
Scott, E.
(2016). This Baker Makes Breakup a Little
Bit Sweeter. Metro News. Retrieved From: http://metro.co.uk/2016/02/18/this-baker-makes-breakups-a-little-bit-sweeter-5702956/
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