HDV, colour, sound, 10 min 30 sec, 2014
What Are You Hungry For? is a collaborative video essay commissioned for Bread Matters IV, an exhibition curated by artist Inês Amado at Artos, Cyprus, in 2014.
The project brought together contributions from artists living in Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Invited through social media, participants were asked to film themselves responding to a deceptively simple question: “What are you hungry for?”
They were encouraged to approach the question with honesty and openness, interpreting hunger either literally or metaphorically. What were their deepest longings? What did they hunger for, whether physically, emotionally or spiritually? The question became an invitation to reflect on fundamental human needs, desires and aspirations.
The resulting video portraits were assembled in a split-screen composition and interwoven with excerpts from fiction and documentary films exploring the themes of bread, food, hunger and human survival. These included Las Hurdes: Tierra sin pan (1933), Our Daily Bread (1935), Bom Povo Português (1980) and Babette’s Feast (1987).
Through the juxtaposition and interweaving of these different voices and cinematic fragments, the film gradually dissolves the boundaries between individual identities, fiction and documentary reality. The result is an emotional tapestry of fictional and real human voices, expressing their deepest needs, desires and longings, while struggling to find spiritual meaning in their lives.