Miami, Jan. 30, 2018 – The Museum of Art and Design at Miami Dade College (MOAD MDC) announces The Maggic Banquet, a multifaceted participatory project centered on food by internationally-celebrated, Miami-based artist Miralda. The Maggic Banquet will explore the variety and unity of Miami through a wide range of local cuisines, from 2 – 6 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 10, at EXILE Books in Little Haiti. This event is free and open to the public.
The Maggic Banquet was created by the artist in collaboration with Chef Jose Casals and students from the Miami Culinary Institute at MDC and EXILE Books. The work celebrates the city’s diverse cultural heritage by tracing the culinary history of Maggi, the ubiquitous and universal seasoning brand. Presenting dishes from the kitchens of various ethnic groups—all made with Maggi—in an altar-like buffet, Miralda explores the commodification and globalization of food and tradition, as well as identity, “taste memory” and eating habits. The project will also publish a zine with recipes and an essay by Stephan Palmié, professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago.
With this project, the artist poses open-ended questions that are implicit in his work. How does food’s transformation into a product affect our original dependence on it for survival? When do the globalizing forces of food’s mass production and distribution affect the more traditional modes of eating and preparing food? The Maggic Banquet reflects on enduring concerns about the ever-changing relationship of man and food, understanding that the relationship is more than just a cultural one.
Born in Terrassa in the province of Barcelona, Spain, Miralda has been using food as art since the late 1960s. He often creates public and ritual events centered on popular culture and traditions, especially culinary ones. The Honeymoon Project (1986–92) was an international series of ceremonial and participatory actions at multiple sites that imagined the wedding of New York’s Statue of Liberty with the Columbus Monument in Barcelona, two diametrically opposite icons of freedom and conquest. Since 1971, he lives in Europe and the U.S., spending much of his time in Miami, where in 2000 he started FoodCultura, a project that includes archives and collections, and creates exhibitions and events around the world exploring the subjects of food diversity and its relation to culture. He was the subject of major retrospectives at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid in 2010 and the MACBA in Barcelona in 2016.
The Maggic Banquet is part of Living Together, an exciting cross-disciplinary series of programs that will galvanize Miami audiences with thoughtful and challenging performances and exhibitions that draw from art, music, theater, politics, and poetry. Spread across the city at a wide array of venues, the series features performances, exhibitions, film and video screenings, readings, talks, and workshops that will reflect the cultural, social, and political realities of how we live now. Living Together seeks to find new ways to think about civic space and citizenship, to instigate actions and conversations that may help us to reimagine our cities and our lives.
Living Together will take place at various sites across the greater Miami area from January to September 2018 and will include works by 17 of the most acclaimed national and international artists, art collectives, musicians, and writers. Events in the series will be produced by MOAD MDC in collaboration with a range of other Miami institutions, and most events will be free and open to the public. The curators of Living Together are Rina Carvajal, Executive Director and Chief Curator of MOAD MDC, and Joseph R. Wolin, an independent curator based in New York.
Living Together is made possible by the generous support of Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council; the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture; and the City of Miami Beach, Cultural Affairs Program, Cultural Arts Council.
WHAT: Miralda: The Maggic Banquet
WHEN: Saturday, Feb. 10, 2 – 6 p.m.
WHERE: EXILE Books
5900 NW 2nd Ave.
RSVP at http://www.mdcmoad.org.
Visit the MOAD MDC website for updates and a full schedule of events: http://www.mdcmoad.org/.
Press Contacts: JWI PR—Jessica Wade Pfeffer: 305-804-8424, jessica@jwipr.com; or Juliana Gutierrez: 305-991-4259, juliana@jwipr.com.