Melting Pots

About

The second part of Raul Ortega Ayala's exhibition, is devoted to Melting Pot's a performance and installation which launches with an event on the evening of 06 July 2011. For Melting Pot's the artist carefully recreates a buffet that was served in Windows on the World, the famous restaurant on top of one of New York's Twin Towers. For each manifestation of Melting Pot's the buffet is created in close collaboration with chef's who interpret a found photograph of a buffet served in the restaurant, which stood on top of the World Trade Centre. For the performance and installation at the gallery Ortega Ayala has worked with Clive Greenhalgh, chef/patron of The Ambassador who is about to get his mobile restaurant "Lunch" on the road. Ortega Ayala serves food to participants on kitchenware that was potentially made from the recycled metal debris of the towers, to investigate the paradoxical cycle of these remains. Through extensive research, that typifies the artists working practice, Ortega Ayala discovered in early 2002, that scrap metal from the Twin Towers was being shipped to India to be made into cooking ware, amongst other things. Illustrating a fiction based on documented facts, the installation includes found images, news clippings, maps, a postcard, souvenirs and a video of the pots being made in India alongside the actual pots, pans and serving dishes and a reconstruction of the buffet as seen in the found photograph. After the performance on the evening of 6 July the artist leaves the remains of the buffet as part of the exhibition, which continues till 22 July. Melting Pot's is the second part of an exhibition by Mexican born and based artist Raul Ortega Ayala. Part I of the exhibition runs till 25 June and includes work from the artists ongoing food series including a video installation, text based works, field notes and interventions.