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Preservation vs Ephemerality
Tension between preservation and ephemerality in my work can be explored through the process of fermentation which allows for living organisms to metabolize matter while preventing spoilage. This process acts as a living metaphor of metabolizing both the physical and conceptual waste of the Capitalocene, allowing for new ideas and energy to emerge. This approach is active within Preservation Instinct (2021), the central component of Rat, Plastic, Wood, where multiple generative processes are focused as artistic practice: wild environmental yeast fermentation, bacterial acidification, and dehydration. A large, irregularly shaped wooden frame covered in rusted and dirt-caked plastic becomes a permeable membrane for the habitat of dirt, custom clay vessels, fruit flies, and fermentations inside. The vessels are filled with fermented liquid from collections of garbage, leaks from ceilings and dehumidifiers, and homemade wines produced from personally collected botanicals, food waste, and garbage. The fruit flies have self-inoculated some of the wines and introduced acetobacter bacteria. Over time, the bacteria forms into SCOBYs and transforms the wines into bacterial vinegar cultures. The SCOBYs can be sectioned and dried in order to create new food sources for the fruit flies. Depending on when the work is viewed, different stages of this process will be seen.
My great grandmother on my mother’s side, Mary (my namesake), was a Mennonite known for her fermentation. Her mother before her, Katarina (my middle namesake), was a herbalist and midwife. There is a long personal family history of looking to plants for knowledge and traditions of preservation. Fermentation is both a powerful transformational force, but also a preservation agent. What is fermented and changed now has the potential to remain. The mutualistic bacteria cultivates and the spoilage bacteria subsides. Fermentation is rich as both metaphor and practice. It is the yeast, sometimes environmental yeast from the air, other times cultivated yeasts, that are introduced to assemblages and catalyze the transformation of sugars into alcohol. When I use fermentation in my work, it gives me the opportunity to place materials and organisms directly together into breeding areas where they can grow and change each other. According to Sandor Felix Katz, renowned fermenter and writer, one of the earliest uses of fermentation as a metaphor was in a political analysis from 1681: “Several Factions from this first Ferment, Work up to Foam, and Threat the Government” (10). The fermentation act provides a pungent visualization for how transformative ideas can grow within us. Fermentation is powerful. Yeast is powerful. Microorganisms are powerful. Their power is transformative and transmutative.
The way I see it, humans have a better chance of changing our behaviours and systems if we acknowledge that our lives, our environments, and our very bodies, exist within an interwoven web of dependency in which we are constantly being contaminated and contaminating, forming and reforming through a process of merging ourselves with others. We have the transformative power of yeast within us. Through realizing and embracing our inter-dependency, we can become lichenized versions of humanity, in which we metabolize, create, transform, preserve what matters, and ultimately reform our society. I’m not claiming this artwork will reform society, but through my work, I try to embody ideas of interconnectivity and reliance within collaborative environments and systems. These environments provide a hospitable setting in which different organisms can grow, reproduce, eat, affect, and preserve on an intimate scale. The scale allows for familiarity and understanding to grow between the viewer and the acting collaborators in the work over time, and helps me understand and process my own relationship with the world and its interconnected organisms.
︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎🕳️
Preservation vs Ephemerality
Tension between preservation and ephemerality in my work can be explored through the process of fermentation which allows for living organisms to metabolize matter while preventing spoilage. This process acts as a living metaphor of metabolizing both the physical and conceptual waste of the Capitalocene, allowing for new ideas and energy to emerge. This approach is active within Preservation Instinct (2021), the central component of Rat, Plastic, Wood, where multiple generative processes are focused as artistic practice: wild environmental yeast fermentation, bacterial acidification, and dehydration. A large, irregularly shaped wooden frame covered in rusted and dirt-caked plastic becomes a permeable membrane for the habitat of dirt, custom clay vessels, fruit flies, and fermentations inside. The vessels are filled with fermented liquid from collections of garbage, leaks from ceilings and dehumidifiers, and homemade wines produced from personally collected botanicals, food waste, and garbage. The fruit flies have self-inoculated some of the wines and introduced acetobacter bacteria. Over time, the bacteria forms into SCOBYs and transforms the wines into bacterial vinegar cultures. The SCOBYs can be sectioned and dried in order to create new food sources for the fruit flies. Depending on when the work is viewed, different stages of this process will be seen.
My great grandmother on my mother’s side, Mary (my namesake), was a Mennonite known for her fermentation. Her mother before her, Katarina (my middle namesake), was a herbalist and midwife. There is a long personal family history of looking to plants for knowledge and traditions of preservation. Fermentation is both a powerful transformational force, but also a preservation agent. What is fermented and changed now has the potential to remain. The mutualistic bacteria cultivates and the spoilage bacteria subsides. Fermentation is rich as both metaphor and practice. It is the yeast, sometimes environmental yeast from the air, other times cultivated yeasts, that are introduced to assemblages and catalyze the transformation of sugars into alcohol. When I use fermentation in my work, it gives me the opportunity to place materials and organisms directly together into breeding areas where they can grow and change each other. According to Sandor Felix Katz, renowned fermenter and writer, one of the earliest uses of fermentation as a metaphor was in a political analysis from 1681: “Several Factions from this first Ferment, Work up to Foam, and Threat the Government” (10). The fermentation act provides a pungent visualization for how transformative ideas can grow within us. Fermentation is powerful. Yeast is powerful. Microorganisms are powerful. Their power is transformative and transmutative.
The way I see it, humans have a better chance of changing our behaviours and systems if we acknowledge that our lives, our environments, and our very bodies, exist within an interwoven web of dependency in which we are constantly being contaminated and contaminating, forming and reforming through a process of merging ourselves with others. We have the transformative power of yeast within us. Through realizing and embracing our inter-dependency, we can become lichenized versions of humanity, in which we metabolize, create, transform, preserve what matters, and ultimately reform our society. I’m not claiming this artwork will reform society, but through my work, I try to embody ideas of interconnectivity and reliance within collaborative environments and systems. These environments provide a hospitable setting in which different organisms can grow, reproduce, eat, affect, and preserve on an intimate scale. The scale allows for familiarity and understanding to grow between the viewer and the acting collaborators in the work over time, and helps me understand and process my own relationship with the world and its interconnected organisms.
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RECIPE
Section 1:
moss, horsetail, juniper berry, pine needle, cedar leaf, sugar, water
leave to ferment 3-6 months
wine
Use in section2
Section 2:
Food source
fruit flies
wine
vinegar*
food source