As we draw closer to the sky, we move further away from the ground. Perhaps, then, we conceive of the table as a new surface to support tools, habits, and abundance. Ground – Table – Sky. At the table, we write stories, discuss the future, play, and draw. We expand and share our inner world.

In this group exhibition, the table that interests us is the one for food. Where the slaughtered hare is prepared, where cheese is shared, where the perfection of a cultivated pear and the trophy of a hunted deer are displayed—the one that extends to the walls that adorn it: the dining room.

Drawing on the concept of ‘Artes de la mesa’ (table arts) proposed by Ana Patricia Gómez, director of La Balsa Arte, we are hosting a special gathering centered on everything that precedes and follows a banquet. The artists gathered here highlight the urban disconnect from hunting, the grocery list as a subtle memory, the plate empty of food yet full of symbols, nourishment as an ancestral medicine, the wrapping of leftovers in aluminum foil shaped like the animal served, and the microorganism that consumes what we leave behind in the cupboard. They serve as a reminder of the fragility of life, but also that everything remains alive despite changing states. They observe how sophisticated eating and serving food have become, for between tools, tables, rooms, and cooking, we invent all manner of paraphernalia, instructions, and rituals—to the point of offending with a mistaken gesture, rejoicing in every small utensil, and appreciating the beauty of a fresh melon and a rotting fig.

However, even though we have refined everything down to the light we use to illuminate our hunt, neither the beginning nor the end has changed in essence: there is still prey, there is still gathering, there is still coming together. And we are still accompanied by that Other who eats what we do not ingest in the act—the mushroom, the dog, the vulture.