Takeaway: Tales from the Flavour Superhighway

Overview

Takeaway: Tales from the Flavour Superhighway is an artistic project that explores ecological networks, food sovereignty, and decolonial cultural practices. Curated by Denise Thwaites and Mariam Ella Arcilla, Takeaway comprises an exhibition, knowledge-trading sessions, talks, food demos, and tours across Ngunnawal and Ngambri/Canberra and Gadigal/Sydney. The project invites audiences to engage with the complex and regenerative stories that underpin eating and cultivating food by asking them to reimagine social, historical, and cultural systems for community nourishment, while reclaiming food and waste economies.

The Takeaway exhibition takes place at Canberra Contemporary and features works by Marley Dawson, Keg de Souza, Gianna Christella Hayes, Gillian Kayrooz, Zora Pang, Janhavi Salvi, and James Tylor. Presented as part of Canberra Art Biennial 2026, the show is accompanied by a public program at multiple venues across Canberra themed around gastropoetics, food security, and diaspora eating imaginaries. Included in the show is a pop-up reading area by Magenta House featuring publications and ephemera that serve as 'side-dishes' to the themes explored by the participants of this project. Ultimately, Takeaway takes a regenerative approach into why and how we eat, while digesting fraught histories and ecologies of land, water and labour.