Edible if you like

This story is a part of MOLD’s reader-submitted project series. Submit your projects here for consideration.

‘Edible if you like’ is a story of glossy and saturated images with appetizing colors and dripping textures, in the abstract of an almost internal world, moist and vibrant. Through the images, a new dimension of an immediate reality is revealed. The unfolding of these visual studies is the result of foraging in urban or natural spaces.

Art by Solène Riff and Rocio Chacon.

Materials juxtapose and blend on a reflective surface. This series of images responds to the intersection of Solène Riff and Rocio Chacon‘s creative practices exploring food remains and material leftovers, natural and over-natural dimensions of an expanded microcosm. The combination of these foraged objects with other materials, often reflective, shimmering, and sparkling, adds an artificial contrast that intensifies their natural qualities. Through these compositions Rocio is interested in exploring the details and form of bodies, both human and more-than-human, their moving lines, curves, colours and shadows.

Our visual appetite constantly asks for the unseen and new image-creation tools facilitate the artificial generation of unreal objects. Often inspired by seemingly natural textures and forms, these new images disconnect from the fascinating world of texture and colour that already exists in natural elements. The world of food is one of the most fascinating of these natural visual realms, where our synaesthetic perception of the world comes together to desire the taste of a beautiful and indefinable image. In this project Riff and Chacon have looked closely at food, composing abstract images with an unusually appetizing message. Offering an alternative concept of beauty, they have curated a selection of rubbish materials, food colouring, oil leftovers and fruit remains that they found in their kitchens and studios. All materials were reused, renewing them with another beauty and purpose.

This collaboration was born from the duo’s shared fascination with natural shapes, textures and colours. Both their practices lead them to observe natural materials, food in the case of this project, in close detail, transforming these materials into sculpture-like compositions. Experimentation was key in the photographic process, where the camera allowed for the unveiling of details that the bare eye would not recognize. The starting point was to dive into a micro world of dripping remains sitting on reflective surfaces. They gathered artifacts, found broken flowers, overgrown garden plants. They met, composed, ate, photographed, Zoomed, and cropped. The compositions drastically evolved throughout the day starting with a very composed installation to a chaotic dessert. The final images were unveiled in the last part of this process.

When used as raw material, ordinary food remains can become quirky visual poetry that is edible, if you like. Challenging the idea of waste, having a second look at what is not perfect; keeping materials as long as possible while they mature, decompose, dry out; discovering new perspectives, coming closer, observing all materials and objects in a different way, magnifying their details and discovering the invisible. Finding a lush sensation in the details of what is discarded and unseen; finding visual fascination in daily common food leftovers. There is endless potential, beauty, and taste in remains.

Solène Riff, the stylist and prop designer, is a set designer and multidisciplinary creative, interested in telling stories by creating intricate and detailed installations, sensual and textured artworks, objects and accessories, merging handmade and organic, with a focus on using natural and trashed material. Photographer Rocio Chacon’s work looks attentively at fragments of organic material, expanding the perception of these found objects by focusing on simple detail.