Hearthside is an installation of a new body of work by British-Bengali artist Mohammed Z. Rahman, presented over six days, in collaboration with Oitij-jo, meditating on hospitality, food knowledge, ecosystems and the emotional power of the dinner table to foster solidarities.
Interpreting embodied culinary knowledge, reflections on food supply chains, and teeming moments of community, Rahman communicates their alchemical, magically alive gastronomical universe through paint, sculpture, and installation.
Rahman’s self-taught painting practice shares its DNA with when they began cooking in their teens as part of a working-class Bengali family living in London. Their culinary vocabulary consists of diasporic interpretations of their ancestral Sylheti cuisine, English classics, and their enmeshment in the kaleidoscopic, ever-creolising cuisines of London’s migrant communities.
Politically, Rahman makes visible the care, labour, and regionality/globality of food in a bid to humanise and unite in a socio-political moment characterised by steepening divides. Inspired by Islamic notions of hospitality and internationalist notions of solidarity, Rahman considers the role of food as a vehicle for redistribution, spiritual renewal, and radical kindness.
