Food Coffin
ALL ABOUT THE FOOD WASTE
Growing up, I was told that if I wasted food, I would have to finish it after I went to hell. However, there are still times when food is discarded for various reasons. I used Taiwan as a base for my research and explored issues and relationships between hellish beliefs and food waste. I spent a week collecting leftover and discarded food scraps, preserving them, making individual specimens of food and transferring 'dead' food to hungry ghosts using talismanic paper and the six-character mantra taught by Buddhism.
Over the course of a week, I collected
forty-three types of food that had been thrown
away, with a total of twenty-four types.
Of these, nine were raw food waste, and fifteen were
cooked, which illustrates the significant amount of
food is wasted by each household in such a short period.
Incorporating the concept of human beings
chanting a mantra after death, I presented food with
empty pieces of talisman paper and a six-character seal,
which is randomly glued on top to give the work a sealed appearance.
The food we throw away is like a meal in
a restaurant for the hungry, so I put together a
menu of finished food remains, and put a price on it
in the form of 'paper money' to give people
a more realistic idea of hell and food waste.