Viral Confections

Caitlin Berrigan

Plaster model, chocolates, interactive tea party

Viral Confections is from a series of works, Sentimental Objects in Attempts to Befriend a Virus. The chocolates illustrate the protein structure of the hepatitis C virus.

Comments

[Caitlin Berrigan]

Would you like to befriend a virus?

Come to the opening reception of the Trans Exhibition on Saturday from 5:30-7:30 at the Kupfer Center.

Tea and chocolate viruses will be served. $3 donation for each hepatitis C truffle.

[frederick gibbs]

Physicians have struggled with the murky boundary between food and poison; food historians have written extensively about food identities. Reaching far beyond an audience of medical consumers and epicures, and further dissolving any distinction between them, Viral Confections challenges many traditional assumptions about the interactions between food and the body. On the surface, it suggests that a virus might well be appeased with chocolate—an indulgence normally for the body or mind. At the same time, the protein-modeled truffle hints at its own danger as a food that is essentially unhealthy but still essential. With this intriguing juxtaposition, Berrigan provokes a number of historical and contemporary questions about the identity of food and the purposes to which we employ it. She also provokes some rethinking of the nature of the virus itself, especially when it functions at once as a foreign intruder and component of personal identity.

[law of attraction book]

You made some excellent points in that last post. I find this a really interesting subject. Another guy writes really well on the matter, can’t remember his name at the moment though.

[law of attraction]

Impressive post. The data given in this post are and very essential to know. You tried well. I am really looking forward to your next post.