9PM Dinner, United States, 2018

Label

In 2018, Steven Contreras’s stepfather, Lenin, was required to return to Peru while undergoing a long and complicated process to obtain Permanent Residence status in the United States. Uncertain of when or if he would be allowed to return, Contreras’s family faced a period of turbulence and separation. During Lenin’s absence, Contreras collaborated with his mother, Alma, and his sister, Abigail, to capture this intimate and vulnerable moment in their lives.

In Contreras’s 9PM Dinner, the kitchen table is freighted with worry and uncertainty even as Contreras and his family try to live life as normally as possible. In this photograph, Contreras leaves many questions unanswered—those unseen at the table, the scattered takeaway containers, and the late dinner time (referenced in the title) all speak to the larger sense of ambiguity underpinning this family experience. We, the audience, are outside participants observing this dinner taking place, but we also see through the eyes of Contreras as he witnesses his mother’s exhausted face.

From the 2024 exhibition From the Field: Tracing Foodways Through Art, curated by Nichelle Gaumont, Board of Advisors Mutual Learning Fellow (Registration and Collections), Beatriz Yanes Martinez, Board of Advisors Mutual Learning Fellow (Curatorial), and Jayde Xu, Board of Advisors Mutual Learning Fellow (Education and Public Programming)  

Course History

Anthropology 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Charis Boke, Summer 2024

First Year Student Enrichment Program, Rachel Obbard, Summer 2024

Exhibition History

From the Field: Tracing Foodways Through Art, Owen Robertson Cheatham Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 8-November 3, 2024.

Provenance

The artist, Steven Molina Contreras, 2018; sold to present collection, 2022.

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