Katherine Lonly - To Tell My Real Intentions, I Want to Eat Only Haze Like a Hermit

Eating is never just a technical act. A source of pleasure or a control tool over one’s body, a way to connect with people or solitary delight, uninhibited or generating anxiety, our relationship with food can take different faces. It is intimately connected to our emotions and acts as a subtle revealer of our social and family history. But where does it lay its foundations?
Katherine Longly was overweight when she was a child. Between control and pleasure, her link with food is always occupied by the ghost of those childhood memories, which shape the image of oneself with force and persistence. During several residencies in Japan, the artist interviewed ten people with different ages and backgrounds, with or without eating disorders, on the subject of their relationship with food and their bodies, and asked them to illustrate this relationship from their point of view, using a disposable camera.
 
We can thus understand how Yuki sank into anorexia, little by little, to end up being only able to swallow liquids; how Ren managed to protect herself from the outside world thanks to her mother’s bentos; how Kenichi reacted when he was categorised “metabo” after having his waistline measured by the municipality; how Mina managed to reconnect with a missing mother while cooking with her brothers; or how Rika has been able to hide her bulimia from everyone for more than twenty years.

At the crossroads of art and anthropology, this project invites everyone to dig to discover where their relationship with food and their body is rooted.