Holly Graham, Sweet Swollen

8 May-25 Aug 2018

Overview

Sweet Swollen is a new commission by Holly Graham. Comprising print and audio, these consider historic links between domestic culinary culture and visual culture within Europe.The works take as their starting point a pair of Meissen porcelain sweetmeat bowls that are currently on display in a collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum. These were made between 1765–75 and would have, at the time of their production, been considered an artisanal, luxury good, symbolizing the wealth and status of their owner. Visually, they each depict turfy mounds which prop up bowls to hold sugar or sweetened dried fruits, which are in turn flanked by caricatured ‘blackamoor’ figures who gesture towards the food products in the bowls in front of them. These are part of a wider tradition of similar figurines that embody, and silently testify to, financial gain through processes of colonial exploitation.