Food for Thought: Artist and Historian in Conversation

Join us for a fascinating conversation about food, culture and identity with artist Deanna Hitti and food historian Dr Cecilia Leong-Salobir at Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, co-presented with the Institute of Advanced Studies at The University of Western Australia.

Deanna Hitti is an Australian artist based in Melbourne with Lebanese heritage. Her multidisciplinary arts practice spans over 25 years and investigates representations of the Middle East through the lens of historical and cultural material. Combining traditional and experimental print methods—such as screen printing, cyanotype, and photography—Hitti creates intricate artist books and large-scale prints that explore language, identity, and cultural hybridity.

Hitti’s work has been shortlisted for numerous national awards. Her artist book Towla won the 2018 Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award. She has exhibited across Australia and internationally, with solo and group exhibitions at venues including State Library of Victoria, Fremantle Arts Centre, Artspace Mackay, Counihan Gallery, Scuola de Graphica in Venice and IMPACT8 International Printmaking Conference (Scotland).

In 2023 Deanna received a major commission by the State Library of Victoria for her work titled A is for Alam-the object, the language, the archive. Her works have been acquired by major Australian collections including The State Library of Victoria and The National Library of Australia.

Dr Cecilia Leong-Salobir is a food historian affiliated with the University of Western Australia. Her books on food history are Urban Food Culture in Asia Pacific: Sydney, Shanghai and Singapore in the 20th Century, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019; Routledge Handbook of Food in Asia, (editor) 2019; and her PhD thesis from UWA was published as Food Culture in Colonial Asia: A Taste of Empire, Routledge, 2011. Cecilia’s new book, Mother Hakka: Food memoir and Hakka foodways will be published by UWA Publishing in 2027. She serves on editorial advisory boards for Bloomsbury Food Library; Food, Culture & Society and Global Food History and is a board member of Association for the Study of Food and Society.

Visiting LWAG

Deanna’s solo exhibition, Mezze, is on show at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery 31 July – 19 September 2026. The gallery is open Tuesday – Saturday, 11am-4pm. Entry is always free.

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We acknowledge we are situated on Whadjuk Noongar land. We pay our respects to the traditional owners of the lands on which we live and work across Western Australia and Australia.

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View all related events to the exhibitions at uwa.edu.au/lwag/Events

Image: Deanna Hitti, K is for Kitab Tabakh (cookbook) (detail), 2024, Counihan Gallery, Photo: Christian Capurro