“If in fairy tales, houses are made of sweets, Nadege Meriau does the reverse, transforming the edible into a dwelling, making architectures of fibres, vegetables and porous matter. This is an architecture of the digestible, made of curves and unexpected textures, that recall the art of the rocaille, or when a grotto is endowed with a viscosity that reminds us of a digestive apparatus.” Olivier Richon, 2011

Isabel de Vasconcellos is delighted to present an exhibition of four recent photographs by French artist Nadege Meriau.

Meriau’s starting point is a study of notions of habitation, in particular our relationship to food and the connections between eating, dwelling and belonging. Her large format images take us into the enclosed and sheltered space within foodstuffs. Probing inside them like a laparoscope, they present us with an intimate architecture that is at once strange, visceral and sublime.

Describing her work, the artist says:

“My investigations are rooted in Gaston Bachelard’s concept of the intimate immensity, the romantic longing to ‘incorporate infinity’ and my interest in biomimicry.

I understand ecology in the true sense of the word, as in the study of habitation (“Okologie, from the Greek Oikos “house, dwelling place, habitation” + Logi “study of”).

I am interested in the nesting instinct, in what we call ‘home’, whether it is our domestic, social, or natural environment. How do we root ourselves in a space, a community? How do we create a sense of belonging? How do we define our identities?

My current practice investigates the emerging interest in alternative dwellings such as the hobbit house by Simon Dale. Could it be that in a world of uncertainty we long for intra-uterine architectures? And could this be a manifestation of our subconscious desire to return to the womb or the origins of life?”

Meriau’s work is currently on show at Les rencontres d'Arles (France), as part of the prestigious Discovery Award, for which she is nominated this year.

A graduate of the MA Photography at the Royal College of Art, she has participated in group exhibitions including Brighton Open’11, Album at Liverpool Biennale 2010, Curious Nature at Newlyn Art Gallery (2008) and Bloomoi at the Rotterdam City Museum (2007).

The exhibition is part of Global Feast, a grassroots antidote to the Olympics, created by a group of creative Londoners who like to eat, meet and talk together. Drawing on the underground supper club scene that has flourished in recent years, with passionate cooks inviting strangers into their homes, Kerstin Rodgers (MsMarmiteLover) has invited some of London’s best chefs to put together a delicious programme of menus, featuring a different world cuisine each night, for 20 consecutive nights during the Olympics. We are not government, not corporate, not subject, but individuals coming together and actively trying to use this moment in our city's life to present an alternative way of connecting, through food and culture, and a choice to locals and visitors to this great city.

Diners enjoy a four course meal while sitting around Alex Haw/ atmos studio’s Worldscape installation: 15-metres long, six metres wide, more than two metres tall, it doubles as both table and seating for 80 guests who congregate around its continents - dining off its coastlines, enshadowed by its mountains, illuminated by its cities.

For more details, and to book tickets, please visit http://www.globalfeast2012.com/.