Cultural Shots

I also set-up a bar serving shots of alcohol whose flavours responded to terms that imply monolithic cultural groups, but which actually refer to parts of the world with many different religious groups, as well as many racial groups and mixtures. So we had LATINO, ORIENTAL, CONTINENTAL and WESTERN flavour cocktail shots. I based my research on stereotypical flavours associated with those words. The origin of the Western shot was a cocktail called "Good Old Times", for the oriental one was "Tropical Kiss" and so on... There was also a line of shots that guests were invited to compose themselves, this option was called COSMOPOLITAN, and one could choose a ice cubes in the shape of continents to go with them.

The presentation and the performative aspect of serving the drinks became a tool, engaging guests in conversation. I was interested in investigating reasons behind our need for consuming cultural stereotypes.

The Authentic Soup

Looking for the Finnish veg

is this a turnip? someone just said it might be white beetroot....!

What comes from Luxembourg??????

Using the internet I started researching the origins of fruit, vegetables and other foodstuffs. This turned out to be incredibly confusing.... At first it went well and I started my list with North American vegetables, but then it turned out that they may also have originated in South America, and that would be a group of totally different countries! There was more and more contradicting information and I started to get frustrated! I wanted to find the REALLY British, Indian, Finnish etc...I wanted the soup to be AUTHENTIC! Time was running and I was spinning in circles. I asked a few friends for help

Richard:

...I guess nation states are much younger than most vegetables, or the world had different borders.....

Rutabagas

Rutabagas were an important nutritional source for many Finno-Ugric tribes before the introduction of potatoes. Some claim the vegetable is native to Sweden, but others think it was introduced to Sweden, possibly from Finland or Siberia, in the early 17th century. From Sweden, it reached Scotland, and from there it spread to the rest of Great Britain and to North America.

The first known printed reference to the rutabaga comes from the Swiss botanist Gaspard Bauhin in 1620, where he notes that it was growing wild in Sweden. It is often considered to have originated from Scandinavia orRussia.

Brassica oleracea

The ancestral cabbage, Brassica oleracea, was cultivated around 8,000 years ago in the coastal areas of northern Europe. All of the common ‘cabbage’ forms of this family that we eat e.g. cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kales etc are forms of one species alone – Brassica oleracea; humans have simply selected, developed and cultivated different forms. Our large headed cabbages are thought to have originated in Germany, and were certainly around by the 12th Century.

sprouting brocoli

The first selection of sprouting broccoli was probably made in Greece and Italy in the pre-Christian era.

brussel sprouts

The earliest records for Brussels sprouts are from Belgium in the 18th century, making these the last major form of the crop to be developed

Garbanzo beans

come from Southern Europe (Spain), and have poisonous foliage. -but garbanzo is the spanish variety of the chickpea which was found in italy in the bronze age and In southern France Mesolithic layers in a cave at L'Abeurador, Aude have yielded wild chickpeas carbon dated to 6790±90 BCE.

Legumes

have been significant crops in Korean history and cuisine according to earliest preserved legumes found in archaeological sites in Korea.The excavation at Okbang site, Jinju, South Gyeongsang province indicates that soybeans were cultivated as a food crop in ca. 1000–900 BCE.

Cultivations of azuki beans date back to ancient times according to an excavation from Odong-ri, Hoeryong, North Hamgyong province which is assumed to be that of Mumun period (approximately 1500-300 BCE) (Korea)

But where am I going to find Azuki Beans or Legumes? Bella, who recently traveled to South Korea, gave me tea, that is believed to be authentic Korean tea. And if Brussels were native to Brussel would it be fine to include them as a vegetable from the Luxembourg? After all, they are neighboring countries and the boarders have certainly changed.

I was letting proximation into my research.

I decided to cook a soup from the ingredients native to the countries where artists came from. I asked David to help me find out the nationalities of the artists:

"Because there didn't seem time to check with everyone, I made the list myself. So whilst it expresses places I know people have/ do live, were born, spent most of their lives and so on, I'm not at all sure how it fits what people themselves would say.This uncertainty seems to fit with what you were saying about nationality. I've added the numbers:

UK 11

South Korea 1

Spain 2

Finland 1

Luxembourg 1

US 2

Germany 3

India 1 (although its a collective of up to 17)

Russian 1

Italy 2

Edible Intervention for The Nearly Invisible Publishing - first meeting

On the 15th of September I met with David and Sarah to discuss Edible Intervention for the closing event of The Festival of Nearly Invisible Publishing. It was to be open to the public, with a series of performances happening throughout the day.

This time, rather then focusing on the ideas involved in artists works, I decided for my work to reflect on the cultural background of the members of the group. What does it mean to be British, Polish, Indian, American....? Specifically in the arts, we often relate mention/highlight/assign significance to the geographical location we are working in (eg. lives and works in London, Berlin, NY etc.) when writing our CV. I'm a Polish artist living and working in London. When I go back to Poland I feel incomplete and I feel the same when I'm in London. So what does nationality mean today?

Flip it & Eat it – Billboard Menu

This time billboards and food advertisements inspired the menu. All ingredients came from ASDA and we were cooking according to the images we found on billboards across London and food advertisements googled on the Internet. We served pizzas, burgers, chips, wraps…and even raspberry crumble that looked just like the M&S one Sarah found online. Feeling a bit heavy… we burned all fatty calories during passionate discussion revolving around post-modern culture, and modes of art making employed to produce work for FLIP IT & REVERSE IT

Few of the recipes

Muffins a la Tart

Ingredients:

- 1 teacup of milk

- 2 teacups of selfrising flover

- 2 eggs

- 2 slices of Goats’ Cheese and Pepper Tart

- Teaspoon of sal

Preparation: Preheat the oven to 200C. Take one slice of tart and mix with all other

ingredients. Blend everything together until smooth. Divide the rest of tart into small pieces

and add. Pour mixture into muffin cups and put into the oven. Bake until they turn golden.

Tai Veggie Burgers

Ingredients:

- two handfuls of Nicola’s coconut rice

- 3 spoons of Magda’s Tai Green Curry Soup

- 1 Egg

Preparation: Mix all ingredients together and form small burgers. Fry from both sides in olive oil.

Bombay Guacamole

Ingredients: Guacamole and Bombay Mix

Preparation: Mix all ingredients together. Serve with grilled bread.

The Art Dinner at The Agency titled Left.Overs, was a collaboration between Magda Fabianczyk, Niels Staats and Sarah Jury from the Pigeon Wing – the curator of the exhibition 2009 Retrospective. This time, instead of focusing on a singular artist’s work the idea was to reflect on the exhibition as a whole, emphasising the processes involved in making the work, which was produced specifically for The Agency.

For 2009 Retrospective artists were asked to re-make work that was originally created for The Pigeon Wing in a way that responded to the environmental differences between The Pigeon Wing and the new exhibition space-The Agency. They were given basic information on the measurements of each space, The Agency being just over 40% of the size of The Pigeon Wing. They were also aware of the opposing objectives that determine the character of both spaces.

Each of the guests; exhibiting artists, Bea de Souza – the owner of The Agency, Nicola Pomery from PoSt Projects and Alastair T. Willey from Pigeon Wing, were asked to contribute to the dinner from leftovers. The rules were simple – one could make any dish, but every single “ingredient”* had to be modified. “Ingredients” could be mixed, reduced, extracted etc. The “re-making” of the food mirrored thinking processes implicated in all the exhibited work.

Guests were invited to participate in the food preparation that started at 5pm in the gallery’s kitchen. The act of cooking together was an ice-breaking introduction to later discussed subjects. Particular approaches taken by the guests became noticeable. Some decided to collaborate, influencing one another during the cooking process. Others felt uneasy about suggested modifications. Quality became questionable.

Cooking together acted as an experiment revealing or highlighting issues involved in the process of art making and curating, that could be taken further and discussed during the dinner.

At 7pm, all food was taken to the exhibition space and participants sat in a circle. For a little while conversation revolved around the bizarre and unexpected outcome of the cooking, later in the evening Sarah intervened, initiating conversations related to the subject of the exhibition and engaging in discussion with Bea.

*one ingredient is one leftover dish

Fragment of the press release that inspired the dinner

Agency @ The Agency

The Pigeon Wing present: RETROSPECTIVE 2009

For this show The Pigeon Wing requested artists who showed with the space in 2009 rework their original work in a way that responded to the environmental differences between The Pigeon Wing and The Agency. We initially proposed in direct size reduction that is proportional to the difference in floor and wall space between the two galleries; The Agency is 40-49%.