You Are What You Eat is the first creative collaboration between Blitz and Aditus Foundation, an independent, voluntary human rights NGO. This initiative unearths the cultural roots of Maltese cuisine and its ingredients through an exchange of historical, anthropological and culinary research with three artists, who have each responded in their chosen mediums. The result is an installation-based exhibition, which fills the Blitz second floor galleries.

Aaron Bezzina’s Ħelwa Tat-Torque

Aaron Bezzina, noted for his public commissions and large-scale installations, has created a kinetic sculpture as the result of his interest in the culinary effect of Turkey on the Maltese islands.

Sarah Maria Scicluna’s plates made of salt represent her interest in the universal ingredient and the generic object, and an ongoing fascination with process.

In Disaffective Computing #1: Not Food, video game-maker Pippin Barr creates a future scenario where people are gone and two computers give consideration to human rituals of fasting and abstinence.

Sarah Maria Scicluna’s Salt Knows No Borders

Accompanying the exhibition is a publication and a programme including floor talks and a panel discussion on food, society and migration.

• You Are What You Eat runs at Blitz in Santa Luċija Street, Valletta, until May 20.

A floor talk with the artists and curator is being held on Saturday at 7pm.

Opening hours: Tuesday-Thursday: 10am to 3pm; Friday and Saturday: 3pm to 7pm; Sundays and Mondays: closed.

For more information, send an e-mail to contact@thisisblitz.com or call 2122 4992.

Alexandra Pace

Curator and Blitz founding director

You Are What You Eat is a project about history, roots, routes and destinations. It is a project that looks at where we have come from and what has led us to the state we are in. In short, You Are What You Eat is about immigration; although we are choosing to have this conversation through a channel that all members of society heartily indulge in – food.

The exhibition being presented is the result of a nine-month-long conversation between a researcher and three artists, with the curator acting as mediator. This was not due to any kind of conflict between practices, but because the task at hand was to broker and negotiate historical and anthropological findings and facts in the development of three works of art, which engage audiences in a deeper understanding of how Malta’s intercultural history is ultimately reflected in the food on our tables.

Neil Falzon

director, Aditus Foundation

With You Are What You Eat we wanted to have fun with migration. We wanted to remind Malta that, at the heart of it, migrant integration is not about them taking from us but about people living with people. The project reduces high-level policy discussions to their essentials, playfully refocusing perspectives back to these interactions between peoples, and to their products.

We are inviting you to think about what you eat and where it comes from. Essentially, we are also inviting you to imagine the beautiful opportunities presented by the migrants reaching Malta today. How will Eritrea, Somalia, Ivory Coast, Mali, Syria, Afghanistan change our breakfasts, our techniques, our utensils?

Supporting migrant integration is driven by the human right to live in dignity, in an environment of mutual respect and solidarity. It is also driven by the desire to experience the enrichment brought about by people living with people.