Mirna Bamieh in Paris | ‘Parfums d'Orient’ exhibition at the Institut Du Monde Arabe

Explore the world of culinary art and cultural identity with Mirna Bamieh's video, 'Nafas Immi: In the kitchen with Mama,' now featured in the group exhibition 'Parfumes d’Orient' at the Institut Du Monde Arabe in Paris through March 17.

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In the presented video the artist is having a conversation with her mother Maha Itani, while they are cooking together Waraq-Inab, stuffed vine leaves. Vine leaves, a shared dish between Palestine and Lebanon, demand significant time and effort to prepare for two people, resembling an act of love due to the care and labor involved. Mirna Bamieh chooses food as a means of expressing Palestinian identity, and bears witness to its culinary richness and diversity, she looks deeply at the transmission of recipes from one generation to the next. In this work, the artist is particularly interested in the story of her mother, who is of Lebanese origin, and how she acquired and developed her knowledge of cooking across time. Their conversation in the kitchen, becomes a recollection of stories that cross the borders of Palestine and Lebanon, and her mother’s journey into learning how to cook develops in a biography of the region.

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The exhibition is running from 26 September 2023 to 17 March 2024

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