Wed 26 AUG
Horrid weather
Poorly tummy, lie down and rest
Cycle out, bee-line for pizza
Get soaked on the way back
(No-one told me summer was over)
Another workshop except the wild food walk got rained off so I had to lash a walking performance into a static lecture.
Thurs 27 Aug
Got up early to bottle my soda.
Went for a run first time since I sliced my toe. As soon as I got up the road the heavens opened and I decided to carry on. Loved squelching around in the rain, minus my bleeding nipples.
Anna brings me loads of snacks, she’s so cuuute. She pulled out 3 pots and mixed them together in bowl to make akroshka - cold Russian soup w potato, meat, dill, cream and kvass. She also gave me some spanking pears and black tomatoes from her daughter’s garden, I feel proper cared for. I force her to accept a glass of my wild soda (which carbonated well!) End up having standing chats with Ernesta who has brought in her homebrew kombucha for me to try. It’s spicy, bitter and delicious. She tells me about some gardening residencies outside of Stockholm and we compare notes on our favourite artist educators. The kitchen is momentarily the social space this building is lacking; there are plenty of seating areas but v formal and bland. It’s a hive of activity for young designers / podcasters making coffee and big enough for us to stand around and swap stories, recipes, opinions. It’s a neutral space that we need to respect. I’m reminded of spending time in Sandor Katz’s kitchen, an old double-height barn on the side of a mountain in Tennessee. His walls are lined with hand-labelled jars, wacky cooking utensils, dog-eared books and food justice artwork (running theme is linocuts of cabbage cross-section). The huge stonetop table is at a jaunty angle and creates interesting flows of movement around the room. His kitchen is his studio, classroom and canteen, but upon entry you become his equal, a collaborator, co-conspirator and this sets the tone for a horizontal learning experience. For me this is the purest utility.
I make a rowdy white saltibarsciai & draniki. Essentially, cold borscht and a potato rosti. So good, recipe at the end :)
In the afternoon I prepare for a talk on pay-what-you-can models, supporting landworkers and reclaiming the commons for National Food Service Summer Webinar series (which I just posted the transcript for) then drink some wild soda and eat some rubbish chocolate because I don’t know the good brands.
After the talk I watch Last Chance U on netflix - a docuseries about rookie college football in Oakland, Cali. Normally I find sports programmes dull and staged, but I’m moved by the portrayal of camaraderie of the brotherhood, struggles and sacrifices players make, and seduced by the glamorous cutting of the team’s games. Gripping, emotionally charged and rewarding tv. I feel bad for not reading more but not enough to refrain from watching three episodes b2b.
Friday 28 AUGUST
Been inside a lot this week so pretty determined to get out for a whole day. I need to go to a classic canteen because they are endangered spaces, so that's the plan, but my desire line takes me through Kalvariju market, with a sort of Indo-Christian facade. Inside, a rigid grid of yellow square stalls organised in outward-facing rectangles hosts vendors selling similar produce, mostly what you would expect in Vilnius: berries, apples, tomatoes, plums, honey, flowers. I suspect a lot of this is wholesale. Beyond there is a covered gangway of some more interesting wares: a potato merchant, a tomato breeder, a lady with beautiful pears and some classic farmers who 100% pulled up their root veg that morning. Wish I had come down here before instead of going to the nearest shop like an idiot.
I cycle to the front of MO Museum and decide against going in. Although it is a fancy ass building, there are no shows on and it's 7euro in; I've been to enough private city galleries to know what to expect from the permanent collection (later on Gabriele confirms my suspicions). Instead I return to watch the rest of the Arthur Jafa films at CAC. I love this building, it has the architecture and material sense of a municipal swimming pool: wide modernist concrete stairs w gaps between the ascent and golden brown bannisters shaped in parallelograms, terrazzo / scrim / mosaic flooring, great natural light traps. It's truly beautiful and I could spend all day here.
In the evening I try to meet with a friend-of-a-friend but they successfully flake, so I sit and read with a beer and a dram of herbal liquor outside a busy bar in old town. This has proper holiday vibes; I'm wearing a shirt, sipping from a glass covered in beads of condensation as couples next to me smoke and text other people. The sun starts on my face and ends on my toes. Next I head to Uzipis, the 'Free Town'; it's (predictably) a hollowed out corpse of neoliberal opportunism. Dinner was too dull to write down.
Saturday 29 Aug
Get up early doors, pack a lunchbox of snacks (veg, cheese, peanuts, breadsticks), eat lightly-salted banana on toast and cycle to Kotryna's place in central. We drive south west out the city towards Rudninki ecological park, about 15 miles from the Belarus border. On the way into the forest we stop for a few fungi forays but don't find much and carry on. As we take a wrong turn and reverse out, the car falls half into a sandy ditch - we're so stuck. Kotryna and I see the funny side, we figure the services will come out in about an hour so think about going for a walk. Unbelievably, a guy with a battered estate slows down and offers to help. With an air of confidence that let on he enjoyed doing this sort of shit, he attaches a rope to both cars and drags out the hatchback with wheelspins in a cloud of black smoke. Visibly proud of his deed, he waves off and continues his day with his awestruck family still inside.
Forest gods are against us, probably not keen on showing mushrooms today because of our blooper, so we just gather bilberries (& leaves to dry for tea) and heather for the road. The culture of picking wild food in Lithuania is strong and deep, cross-generational and daily. A broad spring-summer window is peppered with specific seasonal date (green walnut stretch in mid June and girolles week in late August). The biodiversity of wild spaces is guarded by the government legislation for environmental protection, and the common decency of the populace. There is an unspoken shared respect for these glorious glades that sounds like it’s been woven into the collective conscience from early on. Most locals I’ve encountered, even city-dwellers, have a good basic knowledge of edibles and uses. I’ve noticed a nicely-balanced attitude towards wild food, understanding the death-risk and approaching with wary inquisitiveness. I feel like most Brits don’t even clock what a huge variety of tasty plants there are in our neighbourhoods - our dislocation from the earth and food sources has been engineered by free-market proliferation of supermarkets and an irreparable degradation of early-years food education.
On the way back, we stop at a recommended village creamery for some organic cheese and even take a plate of beetroot pearl barley risotto and some linden tea. Once back in central, I take my butt for a coffee & waffle and speak to P (a nice thing to do for myself!) then mooch around the beautiful National Gallery for maybe 2 hours. I don't know much about Lithuanian artists but there are some excellent printmakers on show. I'm so astounded at this intricate woodblock print by Vytautas Kazimieras Jonynas - the best tree illustration I've ever seen, and some excellent modernist publication design on show.
Finish off the day with a chilled cycle up the river, a cheese & kraut toastie, some beers and Last Chance U.
SUNDAY 30 Aug
what did I even do today? Read some Donna in bed then stuck on D0 Y0U!!! on nts and cleaned my studio, tidied my desk, did my washing. Is this necessary labour, forced method or a regular joy? I read this excellent essay about pushing back against capitalist expectations of efficiency.
I’m frustrated that I haven’t been able to implement a routine but obv not frustrated enough to do one. In an abstract way I think I really lack self-discipline in planning; I know this is a conscious thing to be like unpindownable but it’s not always helpful. It’s far too easy to procrastinate / avoid / get distracted than to do the thing you should, I find the brain is an accomplished excuse-maker. I’m at my best when I’m not thinking, when I’m following my hands, without a time limit or outside pressures. I’m trying to come to terms with how lucky I am to be able to say that while also doing my best through the frameworking and facilitating in my practice to allow others to.
Tautvydas and I have lunch together then he offers to drop me off in town for a film screening at Empty Brain Resort, an artist-run space in an old school-type building. Some local film-makers screen Hail Satan? on a projector and I drink a pint of european witbier w a slice of lime. After the film I pinch a cigarette off someone outside and chat with them about Vilnius, I’m here for the first time, they’re back after 10 years. I’m temtped to hang around and get drunk but know that as soon as I commit it will die down so I get cab back to Rupert as the bus will take 90mins and ain’t nobody got time for that. Probably eat some sour cream crisps in bed.
Mon 31 AUG
These last few days are slow and stodgy, can’t shake the sadness about going home, wish I had more time here and away from London. There’s something about a month as a unit of time that seems so so long when you see it written down it but actually moves real quick. I’ve found it’s enough time to get anything meaningful started, but at the same time I’m trying to remember how much I have enjoyed my time here and how many ace people I’ve met. The first two weeks were a whirlwind and the last two weeks have been clockwatching; so anti-logic I know, it’s just a huge part of my mental makeup. I’ve lost energy and that forward motion I had, of course this is natural in any arc of experience but the internalisation process I go through somehow labels this as a failure. I’m frustrated because I should have the foresight to know this feeling is coming and prepare myself with some kind activities instead of cramming and panicking, but old dog new tricks.
I go for a 3 hours walk to clear my head as this almost always works, I even ask myself some really tough questions and try and conjure some realisations but it’s pretty unsuccessful. I did however find an abandoned housing cluster. Extreme dilapidation and burnt-out timber soothed my head. A building that defies geometry and physics!
A little further on, 2 women are walking through the forest with carrier bags full of girolles. I wave and gesture to their carriage. Either I walk back over their exact steps or they brought those mushrooms with them ‘cause I saw Zero golden trumpets for the next hour. Looking too hard for something in particular is like going to a charity shop to get a vintage Barcelona shirt - you almost certainly won’t find it and in the meantime you’ll miss all the good stuff.
Had a very unmemorable supper, probably with potatoes.
TUES 1 SEPT
Last full day, no pressure! Start wrapping all these loose project strands up.
make a pinecone ink from a Pascal Baudar recipe, super easy! Break up enough ripe brown cones for 1 cup, add 2 cups of water and 2 tsp of washing soda (see here how to make from bicarb) - simmer for 2 hours and strain into a small jar!
pull all the dry herbs from their bouquets and add them to a jar for a tea blend for Rupert staff and future residents. Write the label in pinecone ink with a diy quill
Meadow & Fridge, relaxing sleepy tea, cleansing for body & mind: mugwort, yellow clover, heather, nettle, white dead-nettle, goldenrod, yarrow, creeping thyme, turkey tails, ginger. Shake well, 1tsp per head. Steep in boiled water for 10 mins, add honey?
Made lunch for the Rupert team, using up my leftovers. Roast root veg (potato, carrot, onion, garlic, spring onion), buckwheat, veg scrap & kraut juice broth, local goats cheese, grated courgette, wild kraut. We also finished all my sodas. They will miss me feeding them, for sure, even if they remember nothing else about me!
Took therapy over the phone, felt good to talk through where my head is at.
Prepared my 2-piece outfit for eco-dye using the remainder of my colour-giving materials: berries, onion skins, lichen, biro notes, bark, flowers, pinecone ink. Steam them for 2 hours then let them cool down.
By 7pm I’d done a bunch of stuff but not arrange leaving drinks. I resign to a few pints of wheat beer at the outdoor bar and finally get a call from my brother. It’s great to hear his voice, to be able to support him, and to feel understood in my own world. This is a fitting denouement to my stay.
Wednesday 2 Sept
Too little, too late, but I’m up and about at 8am. I pack my bags first of all, then survey the studio landscape; it’s hectic, strewn w plant matter, plastic strips, ink drawings, drying textiles. I take to compartmentalising the materials (into plastics, dust, recyclables, organics) then make some quick Content Wallets and take them with the eco-dyed outfit and leftover organics to the meadow. Anna lends me Pawel’s spade, and incoming resident Muusa films me as I dig a hole - less than a metre wide and half a metre deep -, wrap up the materials in a large drawing and drop the package in the ground. I put the remainder of my unused dry herbs on top, then replace the dirt. The floor dust I’ve collected over the month now lives in a plastic bottle, which I hang from the nearest tree like a pendulum so the time capsule can be found again. Slow Yield, I write on it, the title I gave to my residency proposal.
I had thought about how easy it would be to stay another month, to reject rejoining the stress on London.I figured the buried parcel was a non-human body that I could imagine being inside of, like a paper coffin, wrapped in cloth and treasures. I can transport myself to those coordinates in an instant, I can lay with the worms, rhizomatic roots systems, the rainfall whenever I like. The ultimate reincarnation.
Bye Lithuania x
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Recipe
white saltibarsciai - milk kefir, spring onion tops, ginger, radishes, horseradish, salt, pepper, kvass or soda
Chop all your solid ingredients really small, perhaps in shapes that are aesthetically-pleasing. Pour kefir (straight from the fridge) until solids are covered and floating. Season well, add a dash of kvass or soda for extra fizz and sourness. Make a lot, it will keep crunchy in the fridge for a few days.
draniki - potato, spring onion whites, courgette, flour, potato starch or egg if you like, s&p
Grate potatoes, salt them and leave in a bowl for 5mins. Prep the other bits roughly. Squeeze moisture from potatoes then mix with veg. Season and add a little flour, the materials should still be sticking together, although it’s not that important. Add egg or starch and a tbsp of oil if you like. Oil a medium-hot pan and dollop on a few cakes, pressing down then flipping after they go light brown.