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WITHINTENSIONS

WITHINTENSIONS June 2022 vol 30 FOOD

Table of Contents Jennie Lau pg 3 Mixto Carla Sierra Suarez pg 6 Erin Shuttleworth pg 10 Gifts That I Don t Quite Understand Francisco Berlanga pg 12 pop art K W Miller pg 16

Salmon Sean Sikorski pg 18 Food for Memory Opal Mclean pg 20 Untitled Food for the People Natalie Chan pg 24 Tasting Food and Art Audrey Shiu pg 28 Meet the Team Francisco Berlanga Natalie Chan Opal Mclean pg 30 Acknowledgments pg 33

We at Withintensions want to acknowledge that our work takes place on the unceded territories of the Skwx Skwxw 7mesh w 7mesh Squamish xwm kw y m xwm kw y m Musqueam and S l lw S l lw ta Tsleil Waututh peoples We want to recognize that these lands belong to the Indigenous peoples who have lived here far before the arrival of settlers We also want to push beyond land acknowledgements to further encourage acts of reconciliation Recognition is great but it is nowhere near where we need to be Reconciliation is comprehensive and takes more than an acknowledgment for occupying land We always support marginalised peoples right to protest 2

Jennie Lau Vancouver Crab 2016 watercolour on paper Fried Vancouver crab using green onions and gingers 3

Jennie Lau A Portrait 2021 salad meal on tin baking plate I bought a salad bowl one day but didn t have a chance to finish it so I put it into the fridge I didn t feel well with my stomach so I heated it up in the oven I put them onto a large tin baking sheet and my idea suddenly came to me I started playing with the food on the surface to make a portrait After heating it up I ate the portrait after taking photos 4

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Have a Meal with Wine 2019 magazine cut out paper collage I cut out various wine labels a glass of wine wine opener etc from LCBO s Food Drink magazines and organize them with cut outs of colour brush background oil paint tubes and a shape of wine bottle from other magazines The wine bottle contains some of the famous phases in neon text from Bruce Nauman s work One Hundred Live and Die While enjoying good wines I also like to connect drinking with life and inspire people to think about the story telling behind each phrase shaking some colour to our wine 6

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Mixto 2022 Carla Sierra Suarez When thinking of the constant flux we are all in the exchange and collective mixing of cultures in Canada A vivid image comes to mind the act of cooking Every single day we all regardless of our culture background etc connect to our roots as well as to each other through the act of cooking As someone with a Mexican Indigenous background I immediately start to think about one specific ingredient Peppers Each culture has its preferred pepper from Scotch Bonnet in the Caribbean to Guajillo in Mexico Paprika in North America to Shishito in Japan we all connect through the beautiful variations of peppers that reflect our diversity The work is a celebration of this state of mixing and exchange Mixto is the Spanish word for a collective of different things mixed together to create a whole Just like we all are here in Canada creating unity through cultural exchanges The artwork is composed of a digital collage containing images of different peppers heavily inspired by the Latin American Tropicalismo art movement where rich palettes and vivid cultural subject matter reject the gallery space and move toward the public where it becomes an atmosphere for the merging of cultures and identities 8

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Erin Shuttleworth 10

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Gifts That I Don t Quite Understand 2022 Francisco Berlanga Falling towards the earth Fragments of jewels thrown to us by the gods Gifts for our labours They say when a Pi ata breaks that it gives you its treasures Gifts from the holy spirit But as time goes on it seems that religious traditions become more distant from the Pi ata So What gifts does it give today I m not quite sure but I m certain that ill grab what I can 12

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pop art 2022 K W Miller Inspired by Andy Warhol s deliciously repetitive and colourful imagery as well as the ironclad grip that late stage capitalism seems to have on the minds of most viewers nay consumers This phenomenon is no more prominent than in the food and beverage industry one that counts on the necessity of its product to drive the market and shoves relentless marketing campaigns down our collective throats Damn food and drink is expensive these days Well here s a recipe One for commercial success and moral bankruptcy that is an old favourite of marketing boardrooms across space and time 1 Take an instantly recognizable commercial object doesn t matter what 2 Apply an aesthetically pleasing colouring palette branding 3 Repeat the living hell out of it advertising The result Cool fizzy refreshing Which flavour do you like best Does it even f ing matter Just buy it 16

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Salmon 2018 Sean Sikorski This is a painting I ve done inspired by work that I saw in Tokyo which addressed their concerns around food related to the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster But in this case the theme is our Salmon and its health sustainability in the face of our own environmental issues The background is acrylic and the shade is one that I made It is one of a kind and irreplaceable just like our salmon But the salmon are painted in oil A comment on the threat they face as we move to increase oil in our waters and pipelines through their habitat The fish like oil paint are toxic The halo around the fish has a twofold purpose Is it a halo a reflection of the sanctity of the salmon Is it an aura of toxicity given the environment That s up to us 18

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Food for Memory Opal Mclean There are a collection of moments in my life that are defined by a certain type of food Whenever I eat this specific type of food I am taken back to a moment in time frozen forever In some cases I have only had this food once but it will forever live in my brain as a part of this memory There was an extensive amount of time where I didn t pack my lunch in high school Instead I would line up with everyone else to buy something from the cafeteria It was usually the same thing A stale chicken burger with nothing but mayonnaise that I had to squeeze on myself I would wash that down with tropical juice in a can I haven t had a chicken burger quite as terrible as the ones from school but whenever it gets close that s what I think of 20

My aunt would always invite my mom and I to her apartment for special occasions Her idea of a special dinner was borscht perogies cabbage rolls with lots of sour cream I have yet to find a perogy quite like hers They were thin but didn t break and were covered in butter She also pan fried them for maybe 30 seconds so they were still soft and squishy She was also a heavy smoker so that became part of the experience It was buttery perogies with a side of stale cigarette smoke It has been a while since I ve seen her but whenever I smell perogies or cigarettes I think of her 21

I went to Nice France when I was 14 We were taken to a pretty fancy bistro where we didn t get to order what we wanted Instead we all got what was called un plat ni oise It was a platter covered with all sorts of stuff Shrimp tomatoes cheese meat olives I guess you would call it a charcuterie There was this weird stick that I thought was made of potatoes To this day I m still not 100 sure if it was polenta or fish It was deliciously smooth like mashed potato but had a different after taste I have been chasing the high of that first bite without knowing exactly what it was Delicious yet mysterious There was also a girl who hated fish and she absolutely hated it I will always think of that when I think of that weird potentially fish stick 22

There was a restaurant I frequently went to when I was younger It was kind of in a weird part of town and was never really that full We tried it one day on a whim because I pointed it out to my dad while driving It was a fancy Italian restaurant that served all kinds of stuff but I remember the pasta most fondly They always had a special along with their mains on the menu At first I tried as many as I could but my favourite by far was the seafood fettuccine It was perfectly garlicky and perfectly creamy Whenever I have pasta I think of this small restaurant that doesn t exist anymore It was home to many good memories with my family and taught me that it s always important to take the risk with that new restaurant It became our tried and true spot for many years until it was under new management and started serving different food 23

Untitled Food for the People 2018 Natalie Chan This project was an exploration of the grounds I am rooted in birthed from the rich culture of Hong Kong already an amalgamation of Chinese and British influence and raised by Western Canadian society Mooncakes are synonymous with celebrating MidAutumn Festival but I grew up having them without considering the origins of their lotus paste and salted egg yolk filling their beautiful stamped designs Mooncakes have been believed to be a vehicle of spreading political 24

message when Ming revolutionaries fought Mongolian rule at the end of the Yuan dynasty so these mooncakes of mine were made in two fold declaration personally my wrestle with what it means to be part of two different cultural worlds collectively with my cohort at the time what our art practices looked forward to graduating from the institution that formed us and what that entails Food for the People borrows the calligraphic system designed by Xu Bing Square Word Calligraphy where English lettering comes to resemble Chinese characters and is written in such form These mooncakes embody the means of passing messages passing culture they are a means to acknowledge and honour their traditional past while still asserting its unorthodox existence 25

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Tasting Food and Art Audrey Shiu One day when I was reading a manga titled Blue Period by Tsubasa Yamaguchi There came a chapter where one of the characters considers Art as food that s not edible He then explains everyone has their own preferences and whether or not the food is expensive may not necessarily mean you ll like it or how something mundane may not be so once you ve learned its origins That got me thinking Food and Art share similar realms and manners including how they are consumed Food and Art share their capacity for its spectrum They each have their origins their techniques their materials and can be consumed in numerous ways They come in many forms from simplistic to contemporary It is everywhere They each tell something and while one person may not prefer a certain food or art it can appeal to someone else But most importantly it enriches us Much like I find illustrations and simple savoury foods to be palatable to my tastes while I do not find abstract art and complex spicy foods as palatable Though 28

occasionally I would dabble it once in a while whether it was a part of the dish or an unexpected flavour hidden underneath as you chew But no matter how simple or elaborate it is it can still be labeled as good depending on the individual Perhaps you like to indulge in consuming and drawing doodles from time to time like junk food Maybe you don t because you find it garbage Perhaps you will treat yourself to a large exhibition like a four course meal Maybe you don t because its too expensive Food and Art can also be digested in a similar manner If one dish and piece is good you can describe its positive qualities as contemporary or simply say it s good There s no need to expend too much energy in describing your reasons why it is good There will always be those with more articulated tastes who have a need to preach their art and foods magnificence this is how they consume art and food How they appreciate it and how they would plate it Food and Art can be synonymous with each other It is how the culinary arts had arisen as a fusion of both aspects Perhaps this is why people refer to their preferences as taste 29

Francisco Berlanga Meet the Team We write with intention dwell within tensions We are artists who have been left without an aim for how to continue engaging with art in the absence of institution Our goal is to provide a place where we can write about new ideas old ideas and bad ideas We are by no means professional writers we inhabit a place between the seriousness of academic writing and the frivolity of passing thought We will often succumb to cliches and trends as they pass us as we all often must We hope to present unique thoughts for you to consider Our writing speaks for no one but ourselves We do not reduce the similar experiences of others to what we have experienced We invite you to critically engage with the content to challenge and be challenged to test the tensions in question 30 Francisco Berlanga is a contemporary artist who studied at Simon Fraser University He obtained his BFA in Visual Arts with a minor in Interactive Arts and Technology His practice is based on questioning identity particularly his connection with his own Mexican culture and how one can inhabit a culture while being partially absent from it He engages in discourses with his own identity through the creation of traditional Mexican manualidades or crafts his work makes connections between traditional Mexican aesthetics and contemporary visual language His practice engages with concepts of inaccessibility and the role memory and language can play when someone is distanced from their own culture He attempts to bridge the gaps between his personal and cultural identities by forcing connections between them and by trying to understand the limitations that these identities impose upon each other

Natalie Chan Natalie Chan recently completed her BFA in Visual Arts at Simon Fraser University Her practice often focuses on the relational aspects of people places as well as the inner turmoils complexities of the human condition In the creation of her works she aims to highlight the ideas of reflection healing and reconciliation as tangible possibilities in each encounter Her latest interests include learning how to tattoo in understanding both the technical skills intimate relation between artist and the livelihood of their canvas Opal Mclean Mclean is best described as the selfish artist meaning her practice entirely revolves around herself Her work often relates back to a mental psyche that cannot be described by words alone Instead it can be described by an action A reference to a state of being or a performance that lends to the way her brain functions This manifestation and documentation of different processes becomes her tool to relate to the outside world Her own existence comes into question in a way that so many experience in their own daily life This experience becomes a social cultural and political connection to her projects Her work becomes both alienating but connecting in a shared experience that translates through different media 31

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Acknowledgements We put out new issues every month with a different topic We are always looking for submissions and opportunities to collaborate so check out our social medias on instagram withintensions or email us at within tensions gmail com If you want more information feel free to contact us Our next issue will be on the topic of Noise and submissions are now open Withintensions would not have been possible without the works of Francisco Berlanga Natalie Chan Jennie Lau Opal Mclean K W Miller Sean Sikorski Audrey Shiu Erin Shuttleworth and Carla Sierra Suarez We would also like to thank Francisco Berlanga for his design and social media contributions Natalie Chan for her assistance in coordinating and Opal Mclean for her editorial work We are excited to share our future works with you and we hope to provide more opportunities for artists alike See you next month 33

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