Food as a connection between our roots and our present as immigrants

Scroll to the bottom to get to the stories: Argentina (from Dubai), Mexico, Spain, Haiti and India

The Argentina Chapter is permanently on view at Sumac Space - Art Practices of the Middle East

To visit go to https://sumac.space/artworks/migratory-birds/

Migratory Birds

In recent years, especially for the new generations, it has become almost necessary to emigrate, since the cities of origin are increasingly devastated by climate changes, the inaccessibility of new technologies, and, in many cases, due to serious political, social, and economic situations. 

Once we emigrated, behind us we left people that we love and we will never see again and feel their touch again. Our cities will become only memories.

When you ask an immigrant what is their greatest nostalgia, almost everyone would reply: “My food; the food of my town”. Therefore, if you want to know somebody’s life story, first get into their kitchen and taste its seasoning; It is in the kitchen where home’s soul lives, the place where everything is possible, especially the joy and the memory.

Migratory Birds is a personal photo project that began in Rosario, Argentina, in 2018 and ended three years later in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. To talk about the nostalgia and uprooting immigrants endure while trying to build a whole new life in a very different place.

This project was made by interviewing immigrants from different cultures that were living in Rosario, measuring and mirroring the distances traveled, the reasons, and the circumstances of their journey.

It is a project that speaks about food culture as an identity, the never-ending cycle of emigration, and the journeys that we have not only printed on our passports but also on our souls and our tastes.

Andrea Salerno Jácome

Argentina

The sweetness of reinvention

Mexico

A wanderlust heart with a spicy side

Spain

Between the savory and the sweetest memory

Haiti

The Caribbean joy and a story of resilience

India

The search for the absolute opposite

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