Globally understood: Food as a basic need. A look at Pierre Leichner’s Food Wars

Pierre Leichner’s exhibit Food Wars is currently running at the Maple Ridge Art Gallery, and consists of sculptures as well as photographs depicting a societal view of issues of food of the current generation. The exhibit consists of large sculptures of shrimp tales and their varying stages of infection as well as photographs in which army men have been positioned throughout food items in order to create a scene about the battle of food. The sculptures have been beautifully crafted and within each one the viewer is exposed to some sort of abnormality, that which does not belong in the food.
This exhibit is successful in discussingcurrent issues when it comes to what we eat and what is going into our food to keep it preserved. As well, the issue of food becoming so abstract and foreign from what it originally is, as it becomes pre-packaged, etc. that we loose track of what food is considered natural anymore. An exhibit such as this can be put into the category of global art in that it is able to discuss an issue that can be understood world wide, food is everyone’s basic need, and a piece like this is able to question the complex way in which food has evolved to more than just a basic need but a battle, or for some people a struggle for survival.
Heather Palmer