LONDON.- Fetishised, pornified and glorified, Food for Being Looked at is a new installation that explores the cultural practice and social media phenomenon that surrounds our seemingly unstoppable appetite for images of food.

Presented on the The Photographers’ Gallery’s Media Wall from 27 July – 8 October 2017, it forms part of a dedicated digital programme that considers the myriad role of photography in today’s increasingly networked world.

The act of sharing images of food on social media plays a unique role in contemporary societal behaviour and activity. Photographs of food are used to represent a diversity of lifestyles, tastes, aesthetics, values and moral positions and are meticulously composed and voraciously consumed.

Curator, Anna Dannemann said of the project: “By sharing and tagging these vernacular ‘still lifes’, the photographers seem to participate in an established iconography and add to their constructed, aestheticised ‘consumer’ identity.”

This luscious project showcases an assemblage of eye-catching, colourful, voyeuristic images, gifs and videos, mostly shot on mobile phone cameras and drawn from online platform, blogs and social media sites. From the ubiquitous avocado toast to curated #insta-food, product shots and recipe demos, Food for Being Looked at pinpoints the ‘genre’s’ most common tropes and cultural mores. Presented in chapters or groups focused on the most widely photographed and consumed foods, such as eggs, citrus fruits, chocolate, raw meat and ‘supergreens’, the effect of such visual excess is both hypnotic and repulsive. Whilst some images evidence the more political aspects of the production, distribution and consumption of food, the majority exploit the seductive camera-ready quality of items and dishes. By presenting the images in a continuous visual stream, Food for Being Looked at reflects the speed at which food images are being produced, shared and absorbed and meets our hunger for feasts for the eyes rather than the belly.