Your kitchen waste can end up in a London exhibit

Goa-based multidisciplinary artist Rhea Gupte’s most extensive and introspective body of work began not in a flashy studio but within the quiet confines of her kitchen. In the Covid-19 pandemic, while the rest of the world coped by baking banana bread and whipping Dalgona coffee, Gupte found herself drawn to discarded food scraps that accumulated after a day of cooking—eggshells, orange peel, onion skin, and wilted greens.

“My partner and I began freezing our wet waste to be thrown into a compost pit, and the resulting medley of colours, textures, and patterns sparked my curiosity and imagination. I wondered what these would look like as still-life portraits,” she says, recalling the moment that led her to create 89 frozen installations that would eventually be known as the Compost series, currently on display at Bleur gallery in London.

It was especially timely, considering the mass food shortages and empty supermarket shelves witnessed in the wake of the lockdown that exposed the fragile distribution system of a basic necessity. “The transient nature of the frozen installations brought to mind the impermanence of our natural resources and the things we take for granted. Food is always political: the way it’s grown and who grows it, how it reaches us, who gets access to it, and who disposes it. The reality remains that a majority of the population on this planet starves every day,” Gupte explains.

By reimagining everyday kitchen waste as evocative portraits, Gupte not only forces us to confront our own wasteful patterns of consumption and food privilege but also challenges conventional notions of what can be considered art. Potato peel, leek stubs, capsicum seeds, and other scraps that are discarded into our dustbins without as much as a second glance are now protagonists that sit in visual harmony and invite viewers to ponder on cycles of growth, decay, and renewal.  

“My practice has always been rooted in creating from less and creating with what already exists. And this series felt like a natural extension,” she says. “I very much approached the making of the installations as play, juxtaposing various colours next to each other and not really having any rules. The installations took on multiple forms as they were frozen over time and layers of waste piled up. This allowed me to play with uncertainty in structure, colour, form, and textures. The end product challenges the idea of the contrived versus the organic, the images indulging in both. I hope this series can inspire artists to create from what already exists rather than going out of their way to create plastic sets and props.”

The Bleur showcase, coming five years after the idea was conceived, marks the photographer’s debut solo exhibition in the UK. Till November 22, visitors can get up close with Gupte’s leftovers, which give us a hint to what her everyday meals look like: beans and potato bhaji, Andhra egg curry, missal pav, vegetable stew, dals, and lots of wholesome soups and salads. “Since starting work on the Compost series, I had a literal lens on my kitchen habits and practices. I started reading and viewing the work of zero-waste chefs and how certain parts that may be considered ‘waste’, like peels, seeds, and leaves, could be used in various ways,” she adds.

With that in mind, Gupte and the Bleur team decided to organise a zero-waste supper club to support Compost’s debut and truly make it a community experience that celebrates every bite, made tastier by virtue of sharing a meal. On November 19 and 21, the art gallery will be taken over by Sohini Banerjee, a London-based Bengali chef and seasoned supper-club host, who is tasked with creating a feast fit for the occasion. With temperatures dropping and bouts of seasonal depression setting in, her tamarind, chilli and cumin-spiced confit potatoes, winter pea bhorta, and flaky puff pastry sound like the kind of thing that can warm any soul.

“I was very keen to have a South Asian chef be in collaboration for the show, as so much of the Compost artworks are rooted in ingredients found locally in Goa—right from the drumsticks to Konkani lady’s finger to pumpkin and beetroot. Sohini’s work unanimously resonated with us, especially her values and teachings around the history of food and why certain recipes are the way they are,” explains Gupte.

You don’t need to be a Londoner to be a part of this multi-sensory collaboration (though, if you’re in London, may we direct you to book a spot at her table). Just look at your vegetable trimmings and rejected stubs as legitimate ingredients that open up a world of culinary possibility right at home. As Gupte might agree, a little curiosity and intention go a long way—in this case, even to a table of strangers sharing a meal in London.