THE FABULOUS QUESADILLAS OF MEXICO CITY

Ricardo Roa, a photographer from Mexico City, is making videos under the name Food Side of the Brain TV that show people cooking and selling food in markets, stalls, trucks and on the street. He mixes in interviews with his subjects and field recordings from the street. Ricardo photographed still lives for the current issue of Put A Egg On It and he stopped by to show us his new video work and tell us a little about his process.

I got interested in the study of objects and started to portray them and work on still life. During that stage I observed that many of the objects in this study were things like fruits, vegetables, bottles, glasses; so I tuned my vision to focus on food. Without being completely aware of it, I have moved from the experimental to documentary through some jobs requests. However, still to this day, I’ve been generating an imaginary world through food. 

Two years ago I made a video with a friend, who is also a great chef, documenting what people eat during the day, afternoon and night in the streets of Cancun, Mexico. The idea was just to see what we found. After that, I got a taste for making videos and started adding the recording of clips and sounds. The subjects come from my personal tastes and interests. From the moment something catches my attention it becomes working material. Some episodes will be more like documentaries and others more experimental with video and sound. 

To see more of his work, peruse Food Side of the Brain and to buy the current issue of Put A Egg On It, go here.