Quintessentially From Where?, 2025, Object, Gewürz Curry Ketchup
Migration is a ‘hot’ topic around the world right now, including in Germany. The work begs the question “How German are Germans?” through looking into the synonymity of German cultural identity or ‘German-ness’ with Curry Ketchup. It is a reminder of shifting identities through histories of migration and transcultural lives of people and things.
I come from India, the land of spices and live in Germany. Through centuries of trade and colonisation, the British coined the term ‘curry’ for a simplified, easy to use mix of Indian spices for a Western audience. Currywurst was born through a chance exchange of food between British soldiers and a German housewife after the Second World War. Gewürz Curry Ketchup and Currywurst are German as much as Chicken Tikka Masala is British.
“War is probably the single most powerful instrument of dietary change in human experience.”
- Sydney Mintz, Historian, Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom
Curry Ketchup Me Pretty, 2023, photograph
Negotiating a transcultural identity through Curry Ketchup and Indian body practices (a red dye called ‘alta’ is often used to paint women’s hands and feet for ceremonial and ornamental purposes)