Andrew Gryf Paterson /SCO/FI/LV/

http://agryfp.info

Paterson’s work in Roja Art Lab 2017 was a transdisciplinary practice-led maker research process which brings together locally-foraged Roja alluvial clay with fermented vegetable food cultures, cultural heritage and art-craft+science practice. Inspired by reference to the Latvian goddess deity Māra, connecting land, water, living entities, good fortune and home economics, he explores how these elements may meet in transitory containers and ‘protectors’ of micro-bacterial biomes. Vegetable ferments have been made during Roja Art Lab in cooperation with Lactobacillus bacteria, under saline (slightly salty) conditions in an open-air but anaeorbic (without oxygen) process. Clay ceramic weights have been made to custom-fit household plastic containers, illustrating a necessary combination of old and new home economics-in-transition towards well-being. Inside the containers are a selection of vegetable ferments. A temporary DIY oven was constructed to assist in making a pizza-like product (Flammküchen, Tarte flambée) as base for eating the ferments. We will ingest, so that the sculpture is within.