Laura Cuch: Spiritual Flavours
Spiritual Flavours is a collaborative arts project with members of different faith communities in Ealing and Hanwell, who contributed recipes that related to their spirituality and religious practices. These faith communities comprise: a Liberal synagogue, a Sri Lankan Hindu temple, a Mosque, a Sikh Gurdwara, an Anglican church, a Roman Catholic church and a Pentecostal church. Through interviews and cooking sessions, the project draws attention to food, as a vehicle to discuss spirituality, inheritance, tradition and the relationship between home and religion. These sessions are the basis of a short film and a ‘multi-faith’ photo cookbook.
The exhibition provides a foretaste of the cookbook with a series of portraits of people that have contributed recipes and a photographic series about food-related events at the various worship spaces involved in the project.
Laura Cuch (born 1979 in Barcelona, Spain) is a documentary and fine art photographer, and filmmaker. She teaches photography in various programs at Goldsmiths, University of London, including the MA in Photography and Urban Cultures (which she completed in 2006) and the International Urban Photography Summer School. In 2015 Laura received an AHRC Doctoral Award to join the research project ‘Making Suburban Faith’, and is now based in the Geography Department at University College London, also working with the Slade School of Art. ‘Spiritual Flavours’ has been her major contribution to the wider research project, and is a core element of her PhD work. Laura is also a member of the Urban Photographers Association. Her photography has been published and exhibited internationally.
Making Suburban Faith is a research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council as part of its Connected Communities programme, and is a collaboration between the Geography Departments of UCL and Royal Holloway University of London, led by Professor Claire Dwyer (UCL). The project explores the creativity of suburban faith communities focusing on architectures, use of suburban spaces, material cultures, rituals, music and performance. The project is based in Ealing and focuses on diverse faith community case studies selected to represent different faith and migration traditions.
Free Gallery Event
31 Jan, 6.30pm-8.30pm. Film screenings at 6.30pm, 7pm & 7.30pm. Q&A at 8pm.
Come to see the exhibition and enjoy a free screening of the full 28-minute version of the film in our theatre, followed by a Q&A with the artist.
The Spiritual Flavours film recipes, as well as more information about the project can be found at:
www.spiritualflavours.com
www.makingsuburbanfaith.org
www.lauracuch.com
