Gathered around the kitchen table, familial experiences are passed around and savoured through generations, just like platters of food. In replicating the heart of one’s home, artist Gillian Kayrooz perfectly captured the magic of food as a means of preserving cultural lineage in From the Palm Of: A Roundtable on Food as a Cultural and Community Catalyst. The discussion was an extension of her artwork of the same name for the third Bankstown Biennale, Same Same/ Different, celebrating local art reflective of Australia’s multicultural society.
Hosted in the heart of Western Sydney, Kayrooz facilitated a vividly nostalgic discussion on a panel with exceptional culinary creatives Mariam Ella Arcilla and Kevin Cheng, as well as Xinyi Lim. The three were electric and bounced off each other’s shared cultural experiences despite disparate backgrounds, mirroring the universal excellence of food.
The multi-sensory experience magically engaged the mind, body and soul as each panellist presented a food offering, significantly symbolic to their culture. Alongside a slideshow of family portraits and video recipes, they shared a heartwarming backstory of their family’s migrant experience, collectively presenting food as a boundless means of integration into the West.
However, the greatest spectacle of the Roundtable was not the discussion or the offerings, but the marvellous sense of admiration emanating from the audience. Sat amongst a constellation of local art enthusiasts, the room was home for the entire duration of the event. Perhaps this is the magic of food Kayrooz expresses in her art.
“Food provides communal and cultural sustenance”, shared Kayrooz in the roundtable’s introduction. “Everyone has some sort of personal tide of food or experience or memory.”
Inspired by her childhood spent at her family’s Lebanese restaurant in Guilford, Kayrooz entranced her audience with ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ by her offering of Wara عneb (vine leaves). Served after a demonstrative pot flip, Kayrooz gracefully captured the generational gift of food as a method of storytelling as she guided the audience through the inspiring migrant story of her Lebanese grandfather.
“Your culture and your family and your community and kinship are so deeply embedded in the way that you operate,” said Kayrooz. “I think that is very well encapsulated in the theme and the works across the Biennale”.
The discussion seamlessly moved to the first panelist, Kevin Cheng. Cheng is a freelance journalist and community leader, dedicated to revitalizing Sydney’s Chinatown through initiatives like the Haymarket Alliance and the non-profit Soul of Chinatown. He also manages the Rice Fund, providing emergency food packages to elderly Asian-Australians and combining cultural preservation with community support.
Driven by his passion to voice marginalised migrant communities, he expressed his faith in saying that “food is always the connector” in the Asian-Australian diaspora. Cheng offered his grandmother’s Taiwanese specialty, braised pork trotters, with a heartwarming video recipe. His grandmother is a character, insisting measurements are best when they are from the heart and by the eye. We instantly felt the maternal love of Cheng’s grandmother emanate through the screen, alongside the radiant smile of pride beaming off her grandson. It was truly a wonder.
Due to language barriers, Cheng said cooking transcends speech and was vital in building a strong bond with the elderly community. “It is important for us to take care of our elders [and] Chinatown is a place that symbolises their struggle and survival”.
“The beauty of Western Sydney is that no one has the same experience as the next person. There’s just millions and millions of different combinations of people”, said Kayrooz.
“Everyone has some sort of personal tide of food or experience or memory.”
Sharing the boundless grandeur of cultural recipes, the discussion moved to the second panelist, Mariam Ella Arcilla. Arcilla is an independent arts and culture practitioner and the founder (or as she prefers, housekeeper) of Magenta House, a community hub and library in Redfern. She specialises in culinary storytelling and public programming, hosting immersive food events that celebrate and reconnect communities with their culinary heritage.
Raised in a 10-person household above a bakery, Arcilla was taught “so much about creating a mutual space to serve others.” Her work is a perfect culmination of the lessons she learned from her family of chefs and artists, viewing art as “nuanced and malleable and not such a physical thing.” Arcilla is a whimsical prodigy with a purely tender admiration and respect for the culinary arts, and an equally lovely manner. Not only was her ability to tell a story enchanting, but she is immensely knowledgeable in her field.
Arcilla’s offering was an ode to Filipino folklore: a green mango salad neatly packed in a banana leaf pouch. She explained the combination of sweet yellow mango and sour green mango is symbolic of balance and duality. Combined with fresh vegetables and served with a spoonful of a boldly delicious shrimp paste, Arcilla’s offering and explanation were technicolour to all the senses.
“Food is also extremely political,” said Arcilla. “Food becomes resistance.” She used the example of serving the salad in banana leaves, which were reclaimed by Filipino natives to resist colonial advances and “digest with intention” to sustain the longevity of cultural customs.
Closing with an intimate Q&A between the speakers and the audience, From The Palm Of roundtable was a stellar ode to the quintessential experience of Australia’s migrant community. Food is Kayrooz’s paintbrush, a tool indicative of the universal feelings of familial comfort and cultural sustenance. She was not only an immersive facilitator but an exquisite artist and a gracious host — a true kin to her Lebanese ancestors.
“So often and so commonly, Western Sydney just gets lumped into being this place that people think is as big as a suburb, when in reality,” Kayrooz said, “one in ten Australians live in Western Sydney. So, to have a Biennale that is expansive… really pushes the limits of local art.”
Same Same/Different exhibited at the Bankstown Biennale from 23rd November 2024 to 1st February 2025.
