Eating the Archive: flatbreads as embodied histories

Naomi Duguid is a writer, traveller, and photographer. In her work she explores daily home-cooked foods in their cultural context through stories, recipes, and photographs Her most recent book is The Miracle of Salt: Recipes and Techniques to Preserve, Ferment, and Transform Your Food (1922). Her previous books include Burma: Rivers of Flavor (2012) and Taste of Persia: Culinary Travels in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, and Kurdistan (2016).

She is the co-author of six earlier award-winning books of food and travel. The first of these was Flatbreads and Flavors. It was followed by Seductions of Rice; HomeBaking; Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through South-East Asia; Mangoes and Curry Leaves: Culinary Travels through the Great Subcontinent; and Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China.

Naomi is a Trustee of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery and an advocate for whole-grains and sustainable agriculture. She leads two food-centred small-group trips each year, one in northern Thailand and the other in the Republic of Georgia.

Sameer Farooq (b. 1978; he/him) is a Toronto-based artist of Pakistani and Ugandan Indian descent. With a versatile approach that shifts between photography, documentary film, sculpture, and anthropological methods, he investigates strategies of representation to expand the ways through which museums have looked at the past. He works to redress the role of exhibition and collection-based practices by building community-based models of knowledge production. Farooq has held exhibitions at institutions around the world including Venice Architecture Biennale (2023), Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden (2023), Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff (2023), Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax (2023), Galerie Nicolas Robert, Toronto (2023), Fonderie Darling, Montréal (2022); Koffler Gallery, Toronto (2021); Lilley Museum, Reno (2019); Aga Khan Museum, Toronto (2017); Institute of Islamic Culture, Paris (2017); Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2016); The British Library, London (2015); Maquis Projects, Izmir (2015); Artellewa, Cairo (2014); and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2011). Reviews dedicated to his work have been published by Art Forum, Canadian Art, The Washington Post, BBC Culture, Hyperallergic, and Artnet.