Bit of a different flex for this newsletter, more of a round-up of recent happenings and an itinerary for incoming projects. Seems sensible and fruitful to have everything in one place for this. I have a busy few months coming up and even just writing it out will help me organise my thoughts.
I am available for remote work over the summer and autumn: writing commissions, critical feedback and advice, fermentation demonstrations, and domestic or institutional food decarbonisation planning.
If you’d like to support my work in a smaller way, please consider subscribing for £3.50 a month or buying me a ko-fi.
-then
Contributed to Dr Jade Monserrat’s project Ritual Passage: Memorials for Frederick Douglass and Thomas Jenkins for Alchemy Film Festival 2022.
I was thrilled to advise on running creative workshops with local schoolchildren about embodying and impersonating microbial life in soil, and sharing some of my personal research on composting as a way of forming intimate relationships with non-humans. Jade has since had her project covered by the BBC.
In March I spent 10 days at Grizedale Arts in the Lake District on a Food & Politics Residency
making snacks from kitchen scraps, splashing in mountainside tarns and learning how to hedge with native saplings.
Here’s my diary and some photos!
Release Room at One Thoresby Street, Nottingham with Tom Harris and Seemu Mattu, on Friday 26 March
Improvised collaborative performance to celebrate the end of our New Midland Group Research Bursaries, as detailed here. Write up coming soon but for now enjoy a few images courtesy of Adam Grainger….
“Doing It Yourself/Together/With Others(DIY/T/WO) Interview with Dr Susannah Haslam published in Infrastructuring journal with Theatrum Mundi
Was recorded in conversation back in June 2020 about my work organising with artists on the peripheries of institutions and how the retention of amateur creative agency can protect and build resilient alternatives. Susannah invited me to join discussion at the launch of the book, available to buy here
-now
DUSTS: moments,
***Special edition combo - only 30 available***
Finishing salts, dusting sugars and publication
Three samples of edible powders made from wild herbs, fruit and vegetable skins collected at DARP during spring 2022. Sachets are upcycled from a stack of unsold four-colour risographs recently found, originally printed in 2018.
A hand-collated A5 xerox pamphlet containing new poetry and food texts written while at DARP during winter 2021, printed on various surplus recycled stock from Pagemasters (London).
P*R*E*O*R*D*E*R N*O*W, shipping out at end of May
My December 2020 essay Interspecies Reality essay translated into German for Kunstverein Lüneburg’s public programme “Sorgen, Falten, Sammeln,” (Worry, Fold, Collect) and the accompanying magazine.
Thanks a million to Max Weinland for approaching me and translating this piece of writing, probably one of the most significant in my archive. More information on the website in German.
GROW NOT BUILD at DARP - 13th to 22nd May 2022
I am curating a group exhibition of site-specific installations and wall-based works in the grounds of the old Michael House School, organising a cook-off at Shipley Parish to fundraise for a local charity, and co-ordinating a programme of free guided tours by current inhabitants of DARP. It’s likely to be the last chance for the public to see inside the buildings as development will start later this year.
Artists include Jo Anne Dodd, Sonia Odedra, Samm Shackleton, Maggie Campbell, Ella Fleck, Adam Grainger, Coleman Stewart, Sean Roy Parker, Livvy Punnett, Raju Rage & NadMa
***Opening party Friday 13th May 6-9pm at DARP with BBQ, bonfire and beer from Marlpool Brewery. Wander the grounds and see the sculpture park. All donations go to Upbeat Communities working with refugees in Derby.
***Exhibition Tours
Saturday 14 May – 2pm & 5pm
Sunday 15 May, Friday 20 May, Saturday 21 May, Sunday 22 May – 11am & 5pm
for groups (community groups, artist collectives, families) email darp.res.mail@gmail.com to book
***Vegan Cook-up on Saturday 14th May 12-3pm at Shipley Parish Hall, where we’ll be serving up hot lunches, herbal teas and cakes with the local W.I. All donations go to Upbeat Communities working with refugees in Derby.
***Dark Tour with performances on Sat 21st May 7-10pm at DARP. Discover an alternative history of the old Steiner School grounds, annd catch glimpses of new work by artists hidden. Bring a torch and warm clothes!
Exhibition name “GROW NOT BUILD” was borrowed from Mexico-based artists Raju Rage and NadMa, who have an ongoing inquiry into “strategies of resistance, centring healing knowledges and ‘what we need to heal’ in the context of ‘the new normal’ and our world in crisis”. Follow them foraging, printing and writing on their project padlet here.
-soon
Summer residency at Kreenholm Gardens, Estonia.
For two months, I will be working on a community greenspace in the grounds of an old textile factory (and part of NART, Narva), run by Sandra Kosorotova and Sille Kima, who have invited me to deliver workshops on lactofermentation and soothing handbalms. I will also be working on a personal project learning basic joinery and building a communal tool shed. More info here