






The original starting point for the works in this exhibition were early childhood memories –
tailing behind my grandmother, a baker, an oversized apron tied under my armpits and reaching all the way to my feet, her feet on the floury tiles; my arms all the way up to the elbows in yeast and water when mixing the starter for the next day’s bread.
After this initial prompt I started to look into academic research of the subject – memory - and came across a few concepts and writers that resonated with me. Bernard Stieglers concept of memories transmitted through ‘long circuits’ and their exteriorisation into objects of memory – which could be any object that a human had contact with, a flint, a bowl, a rolling pin ..., resonated with me deeply. Following the footsteps of Donna Haraway I started to become interested in sourdough as a plane of teaching, a touching point between the living and the non-living, between human and microbe. Her idea of ‘becoming- with’ made me question the traditional life- story told: the story of the evolution of mankind as a story of violence and dominance. I found a compromise of thought in Ursula K. Le Guin’s ‘Carrier bag Theory of Fiction’ where she brings forward a carrier bag as primary object of evolution and memory, a recipient that allows for the collection and distribution of objects, tales and ideas. I see Sourdough as a real teacher, demonstrating patience and balance, living and dying.
We nourish the dough. We feed it and it in turn feeds us.
Through my practice I collect all these different strands of thoughts and ideas in my own carrier bag of thoughts and concepts, I grind them down, mix them with each other and let them ferment... finally baking up the conclusion. Breaking bread alludes to sharing a table, discussing and curating culture for an honest depiction of our-kind. Working with non-human microbes, acting on the plane of the inanimate and the living, growing, proving, shaping concepts that work , accepting failed attempts and adjusting parameters and conditions to get it just and right.
