Eat sand, I don't eat you

Eat Sand, I Don’t Eat You takes its title from a familiar local saying exchanged playfully among friends. Used as a teasing call and response, the phrase carries the innocence of everyday social interaction, where an insult such as “eat dirt” is met with a humorous refusal: “I don’t eat you.”

The artist uses this familiar expression as a starting point to create a shift in meaning. What initially appears playful and culturally specific gradually opens onto a more unsettling reality: in other parts of the world, people are forced to eat soil or sand as a means of survival.

Through this contrast, the artist invites the audience to pause and reconsider a phrase they may recognize, asking: Why sand? The familiar saying becomes a point of entry into questions of hunger, survival, and the unequal realities experienced across different parts of the world.

By placing an ordinary expression alongside an unexpected and difficult reality, the artist transforms language into a space of reflection, where humor and innocence encounter the seriousness of human survival. The saying becomes both a cultural reference and an anchor to everyday social discourse, while revealing how the meanings we attach to familiar words can shift when viewed from another place and another lived experience.