"Feast or Famine" 1998

Feast or Famine

The Feast or Famine Exhibit at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center featured a cornucopia of world-class artists. Artists were asked to create a piece in any media which explored any aspect of food, as a substance for survival, its use in moderation or indulgence, its beauty and tactility. Tom Sewell’s “Hungary at the Feast” is a mixed media piece a table is set as if for a royal banquet. In addition to the elegant place settings two naked mannequins recline on the table. In the chairs, wrapped in a single strand of barbed wire, are photos of “…helpless hungry, socially disabled, the still racially segregated, the sexually discriminated and the simply dismissed.”

 

The artist goes on in a handout,” Food starvation is not the only way to die.” There is an empty chair at the table so,” he goes on, “so… each of us wandering by may pause to consider our own position in the community of hallowed souls…” The effect is devastating.

Sitting at one end of the table was Mr. Bill, Tom’s French teacher, dressed in 18^th century French attire complete with a long flowing wig. At the opposite end was Rosalind the zoftig belly dancer in a black evening gown. Throughout the evening Tom would slowly feed Rosalind, while Mr. Bill would remain silent and stationary. Tom collaborated with Katherine Dahl to create the installation.

“Perhaps the opportunity in making “art” eventually becomes the obligation to express that which arises not from the selection of the visual, but rather from the calling and the crying of the heart. This piece is not real. These people are…”  -Katherine Dahl