Considering Power art installation

Non-conformist art

This work Considering Power art installation was made for the 2nd part of the 2nd Festival für unangepasste Kunst in a public space in Munich. Roughly translated it is the Festival of non-conformist Art. The Festival takes place in three stages over the year with each stage dedicated to another theme. This time the themes is ‘power’ (‘macht’ in German).

For reasons of power

The Considering Power art installation seeks to provoke interrogation in relation to questions of power, society and food security.

It was important to me that the work created a dialogue with some of the graffiti in the tunnel. I chose to place the work close to a painting quoting Schopenhauer ‘Wir denken selten an das was wir haben, aber immer an das was uns fehlt’ (‘We rarely think about what we have but rather on what we lack’) which is a critique about people’s consumerist tendencies. This seemed an appropriate spring board for dialogue.

The installation

Using 75 kilos of potatoes I built a shrine like tower of potatoes in the middle of a pedestrian underpass covered with graffiti close to the Schopenhauer quote. The work aimed to provoke questions through surprise and contrast. A cordon of yellow and black tape on the ground around the  potatoes defined their territory. Employing red and white safety tape similar to that used on building sites to warn of danger I secured the potato tower. Outside the tunnel at the top of the steps leading into the underpass I also secured bags of potatoes.

Over the three days the potatoes that were cordoned in the underpass provoked enquiry and amusement with people bringing others back to see them or photographing them. The potatoes at the top of the stairs were the alone sentinels and did not last one evening before they disappeared from the installation. Perhaps the lesson here is strength in numbers.

Background to the artwork

Part 1: Considering Power art installation

I began working with potatoes for the Festival für unangepasste Kunst  (Festival of Non-Conformist Art). The first works I made were the Considering Power art installation made of 75 kilos of potatoes (equivalent to the weight of one average adult) and the ‘Considering Power Spontaneous Performance’. The Considering Power art installation aimed to provoke interrogation into questions of power, society and food security.

For me the potato is an underrated vegetable that has transformed the world. It was brought to Old World Europe from the New World of the Americas where it has become a staple food for many people and central element in many of the key local dishes. It is found in some breads. Gnocchi pasta is primarily made of potato. It is the main ingredient in French gratin and German ‘Knödel’ (potato dumplings). Just to name a few.

It took the imagination of kings and queens to introduce the potato to the initially skeptical people.  French King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette helped bring acceptance to the food in France by eating in at the royal table and creating recipes for potatoes like potato croquets. The first potato crisps are thought to have been developed by a royal cook in the French court. The turning point in the vegetable’s acceptance was the famine in France in 1785 where peasants who had access to the potato staved off starvation when the wheat crop failed. In Germany, Frederick the King of Prussion (Alter Fritz) saw the power of the potato to reduce famine and hunger for peasant families under his domain. He planted potatoes in fields guarded by soldiers as a way to create curiosity about the vegetable. He hoped the peasants would steal them and plant them in their own fields. They did.

Popularity also creates disdain. Today Germans are sometimes called ‘Kartoffeln’ (Potatoes) or ‘Kartoffelfresser’ (Potato eaters) by the Turkish. Lazy people are called ‘Couch Potatoes’. The potato is a symbol for simple people and things.

My first project for the Fesitval of Non-Conformist Art (Festival für unangepasste Kunst) was an installation called Considering Power . An installation made up if more the 70 kilos of potatoes in mounded together in sacks and tied together with security tape. The installation aimed to provoke interrogation into questions of power, society and food security.

Using 75 kilos of potatoes I built a shrine like tower of potatoes in the middle of a pedestrian underpass covered with graffiti close to the Schopenhauer quote. The work aimed to provoke questions through surprise and contrast. A cordon of yellow and black tape on the ground around the potatoes defined their territory.

Employing red and white safety tape similar to that used on building sites to warn of danger I secured the potato tower. Outside the tunnel at the top of the steps leading into the underpass I also secured bags of potatoes.

Over the three days the potatoes that were cordoned in the underpass provoked enquiry and amusement with people bringing others back to see them or photographing them. The potatoes at the top of the stairs were the alone sentinels and did not last one evening before they disappeared from the installation. Perhaps the lesson here is strength in numbers.

Written by Penelope Richardson