Alvin Luong 梁超洪

Ration Market imagines a near-future crisis where river spinach (kangkung, rau muống, 通菜, 空心菜) is distributed as a dehydrated and shelf-stable survival food. The artwork references the historical rationing of this vegetable to the my family in Ho Chi Minh City in the aftermath of the Vietnam-American War. Instead of the fresh bundles of river spinach that were distributed to citizens as food rations, here they have been been dehydrated into brick-like forms that are now preserved and portable. This series of works foreshadows a future when Southeast Asia is severely impacted by Sea Level Rise from Climate Change. In this scenario, these river spinach rations are intended to be taken with people as they migrate to dry and more habitable lands. Ration Market is installed with simple methods to reference street markets commonly found in Southeast Asia.

The project expands into Ration Market Special, a commissioned sculpture by the City of Toronto that exhibited inside of the city’s central transportation hub, Union Station. This sculpture takes the form of a food cart that advertises the sale of the artist’s river spinach rations, the rations prepared as a takeaway congee meal, SIM cards and currencies for countries in Asia Pacific, as well as support services for travel visas. The sculpture creates a mise-en-scene where ordinary people are trying to migrate from flooded areas in Southeast Asia. Ration Market Special was then re-commissioned by the Times Museum in Guangzhou, bringing this project to a new context wherein migrants may logically flee to in the future.

The meals of the project become a relational artwork in a performance called Ration Eater, a dining event where this science fictional food is served to the public.