My Mother’s Cookbooks
I am fascinated by how what we eat is reflected in art and design. On a personal note, this is deeply intertwined with my relationship with my mother, the author of four vegetarian cookbooks, Paola Gavin (@paolagavin). My kitchen takeover for Open Space was naturally a reflection of my mother’s approach to eating (influenced by Bircher Benner’s concept of health and diet) and drew from her collection of over 3000 cookbooks.
The following images are an extension of those I presented on Instagram. They show more of this visual history demonstrate how food and books have been packaged and presented.
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Francesca Gavin is a curator and writer based in London. She is the Art Editor of Twin, Good Trouble and Beauty Papers, and editor at large at Kaleidoscope. She was the co-curator of the Historical Exhibition of Manifesta11 and has curated international exhibitions Palais de Tokyo, Site Sheffield, and most recently Mushrooms: the art, design and future of fungi at Somerset House . Gavin has written six books including 2017’s ‘Watch This Space’, and contributed to numerous publications including The Financial Times, Dazed, Cura, Mousse, AnOther and Newsweek. She has a monthly radio show Rough Version on NTS Radio on art and music.
