The Global Center for Latvian Art • Cēsis, Latvia • 2 March 2024
Presented at the Global Center for Latvian Art in Cēsis, Latvia, Global Potato Cinema featured more than eighty potato-themed movie posters from around the world drawn from the collection of the Think Potato Institute. The exhibition included original posters and rare reproductions representing a wide range of genres, from comedy and drama to documentary film and animation, all connected by the unlikely presence of the potato in title, subject matter, or narrative content.
Nearly thirty years in the making, the exhibition grew out of Jeffrey Allen Price’s ongoing documentation of potato references in film, television, advertising, and popular culture. Since the mid-1990s, Price has collected posters, ephemera, screenshots, recordings, and other materials related to the symbolic and cultural life of the potato on screen. Together, these materials reveal the remarkable range of meanings associated with the potato across international cinema and popular media.
Included in the exhibition was This Is How I Say Potato, Price’s ongoing film project featuring people saying, singing, and screaming the word “potato” in more than sixty languages and dialects. An accompanying exhibition poster documented participants from around the world and highlighted the project’s exploration of language, culture, and shared human experience through the universal familiarity of the potato.
Presented in conjunction with the United By Potato Power conference and related events in Cēsis, Global Potato Cinema complemented Price’s lecture, Potatoism: A Global History of Potato Art, extending the discussion beyond the visual arts into film, media, and popular culture. The exhibition also reflected ongoing research that would later contribute to Price’s planned book on potatoes in cinema and television and his long-term vision for a future Potato Film Festival.
Global Potato Cinema was presented at The Global Center for Latvian Art in Cēsis, Latvia, on March 2, 2024.
Explore Further
→ United By Potato Power (2024)
→ Potatoism: A Global History of Potato Art
→ This Is How I Say Potato
→ Global Potato Cinema Collection
→ Reviews & Press