I'm hungry!

The project

I'm hungry! is a sociological and artistic project dealing with the contemporary starvation and poverty in Western Europe. Through a European City Tour, Mathilde Bouvard was in touch with people confronted to poverty and undernourishment, and also with people fighting against poverty and food wasting. She was in Berlin, Paris, Copenhagen, Vienna, Brussels, and London.

The purpose of the project is to increase public awareness of the poverty in our cities; this phenomenon concerning more and more people like families, women, young and old people.

The project also questions about the fact that this issue is happening in a over-consumption time and on a continent who no-one is supposed to starve in view of the quantity of produced food goods.

The project brings a reflection up, about the new ways of production and consumption, and about the possible alternatives for a healthy and secure future ( ecology, organic farming, urban farming, restaurants and shops to “local” products and prices…).

We will tend to provide a thought about a problem concerning more and more people in Western Europe, with: an awareness by the artistic way, a study about the different ways used by European States to remedy to big poverty, a collaboration with associations as well as concrete actions ( in collecting food during exhibitions ).

The exhibition

The exhibition was set on the same bases as our previous project: Prostitutes of Europe.

The material is diverse: fifty black & white photographs, testimonies, one color photograph, three pictorial compositions and sound creations by Claire Fenateau, and an information campaign.

 Eventually, we include information about associations´ work through papers, conferences and workshops.

Photos consist in three series: one black and white about people and elements met in different places. One black and white illustrating the differences between the subway platforms in every visited city (begging and number of persons sleeping outside being so different). One big color picture representing contemporary wasting.

Each series is presented in the form of polyptyches, on Baryté paper glue-backed on aluminium.

The three pictorial compositions form a triptych. This one is colourful and made with diverse technique and materials (oil painting, dry and oil pastels, acrylic, pigment…), contrasting with the more subdued aesthetic of photos.

This exhibition was presented in october 2011 in Galerie de Nesle in Paris, during the Effraction festival. A conference was organized aroud the exhibition, with Agathe Cousin ( national network of social shops ) and the writer Robert McLiam Wilson ( Ripley Bogle, Les dépossédés, Eureka Street...).

In october 2012, the exbibition was presented to La Maison du Livre in Brussels. Several actions, conférences and meetings were organized, and a conference about

food sovereignty, ecological food and rights. Guests: Marteen Roels co-fonder of Le Début des Haricots, Fian International ( Foodfirst Information and Action Network ), Corporate Europe Observatory, a Gasap and the association Rencontre des Continents.

* To see the pictures of the exhibition, please have a look to the french part "Photo-reportages - J'ai faim!" *