Miku SATO

Miku Sato, b.1985, Japan

Born in Kanagawa, Japan. Miku Sato was a fellow of the Japanese Government Overseas Study Program for Artists in 2019 after she received her Master of Film and New Media Studies from the Tokyo University of the Arts in the same year. Sato currently works in Amsterdam, Tokyo, and Yokohama. Her art practice focuses on the socio-cultural remnants of colonial history through various media, such as videos, installations, and participatory actions. The recent video works center on the subject of food culture, politics, and feminism, as well as how they are interrelated.

Until now, cookbooks have always been written for housewives and regarded as a kind of textbook filled with knowledge that they should learn for household management. Book and Knife is based on the three Indonesian and Dutch cookbooks published between 1902 and 1967. All of them are available for purchase even now. In this work, Soto/Saoto soup, a traditional Indonesian home-style dish made with various spices simmering, is prepared and cooked by three women and the restaurant in Rotterdam. Through such ordinary and subtle scenes, Sato explores the contrasts and conflicts inherent in the act of cooking and the shadow of colonial history. (J.C)