From the catalogue for Fictions , a group exhibition at the Studio Museum of Harlem. Choi and Hallie Ringle. Yasmine Espert , Stephanie J. Williams b. Her three-dimensional sculpture and stop-motion animations investigate our relationship to food culture. In particular, her visual emphasis on food consumption explores the complex narratives that humans struggle to digest, and often leave out of polite conversation.
The following text is an excerpt of my interview with Williams, conducted in the summer of It demonstrates her attentiveness to material culture and its ability to create a theater of familiarity through a time-based medium. Whether producing soft-sculpture installations on the scale of Claes Oldenburg or meditative animation work that recalls videos by Simone Leigh b. This piece comments specifically on your Filipino and African-American upbringing.
She taught me how to fully break down certain types of animals. Our relationship to food was to not waste things, to make use of the parts that might be considered throwaway, fringe, or disgusting. Its sex is ambiguous. Its eyes are still shut.
And the skin is shades of pink; there are no feathers. SW: I think that [Pinoy] was this indecipherable thing, this kind of vague thing, this unplaceable thing. This thing that seemed to be in between states. And then, giving it a position of power…having a collar, this kind of very colonialist-hero European collar. YE: Visually, how did you decide on its elements? YE and SW: …gross. YE: To people who may not be used to eating balut, for example. SW: True…I aimed at making it stereotypically gross.
Something that was very visceral. Something that would get a physical reaction. And I like that as a way of pushing the boundaries of what is considered tasteful. As I got older, I came to recognize [it] as something that is disgusting. To see that as something disgusting — I wanted to explore [that] in the textures that I was playing around with as a materials person, something that is purposefully gross.
