(fermentation)
Recovery Drink!
Galleri Gamla Farsot(2024)
Recovery Drink! is the first act in a series of upcoming works in which I will examine the performative aspects of lacto-fermentation. The work assembles through an associative process, a mix of sound, metabolisms, objects, and performances. I see exhibitions as uncertain sites for experimentation and tools for discovering things I don’t know about a specific subject and my artistic process. The results are often inconclusive, open-ended, and unresolved, but meaningful for understanding where to go next.
When I started to engage with fermentation, I instantly got immersed in microbiology and its complex histories and recent groundbreaking revelations. A rich volume of recent research has pointed out how a bacterially diverse microbiome is fundamental for our thriving as a species. One example of this is the crucial gut-brain axis, which connects microbial health in the gut to mental well-being. Lactobacillus Acidophilus are acid-loving milk bacteria and instrumental in the lacto-fermentation of food and beverages; they also play a pivotal role in several beneficial microbial processes in the body. They have an antagonistic effect on the Salmonella and Staphylococcus bacteria, and they are fundamental to maintaining a healthy and stable vaginal flora, for example. The L. Acidophilus bacteria and the process of lacto-fermentation are fascinating in their capacity to bring a wide range of seemingly disparate topics close to each other. Some intersections are less straightforward than others, like, let’s say, pickled cucumbers and vaginal health or kombucha and anaerobic physical exercise.
Consuming probiotics like L. Acidophilus has been a go-to for gastrointestinal health for ages. Still, new research in the field shows how our food interacts with the complex microbial assemblages that constitute the porous human body. In this light, the oftentimes problematic truism of “you are what you eat” has taken on a more complex meaning. It’s not only in the realm of the natural sciences that microbial performativity is being unpicked and scrutinized. The concept of fermentation is rich in metaphor, and a wide range of thinkers use fermentation and microbial co-habitation to create new political imaginaries. Microbiology, generally, and fermentation specifically, entangles a wide range of concepts in diverse fields, such as metaphor in philosophy, political theory, sports medicine, international relations studies, and gastronomy, only to name a few. Across these fields, new paths of understanding microbial co-habitation question old-fashioned views on the relation between pathogen and host, community and Other, illegal immigrant and nation-state, and contaminated vs. clean, for example.
The exhibition Recovery Drink! takes as its point of departure the history of microbiology by looking at anthropologist and biologist César E. Giraldo Herrera’s claim that the field of microbiology and how we understand it today is heavily formed by shamanism, pre-contact Amerindian indigenous knowledge practices. Along these lines, Giraldo Herrera points out that shamanism has more in common with microbiology than spirits and souls and says: ”Europeans dismissed the epistemology of shamans and described their experiences as the result of delusions derived from the malfunction of the brain induced by mind-altering substances”.1 Eurocentric misinterpretations like these were made by monks and missionaries in the history of colonialism. When engaging with microbiology and fermentation, it’s hard to look past claims like Giraldo Hererras, knowing that colonization practices worldwide have used and are using epistemicide (the annihilation of knowledge) as its modus operandi.
In Recovery Drink! I wrestle with some of these topics conceptually and materially in a staged setting where words and worlds become entangled and meaning is unstable.
(Access the sound work here!)
1 César E. Giraldo Herrera. Microbes and Other Shamanic Beings. (Springer Nature Switzerland, 2018)
Works
The Cucuscle, 2024
Styrofoam, cucumber, fruit flies and postcard with illustration by Utagawa Kunisada (1786-1864)
Musclecumbers, 2024
Cutting board, acrylic glass and collage
You Are What You Eat, 2024
High protein, low fat bar
Accelerationist Vaginal Flora, 2024
Fermentation jar, lacto-fermented peaches and 10 speed vibrating veggie
What Does It Mean To Recover, 2024
Risoprinted posters
The Gut-Brain Axis, 2024
Fiber-glass, heat shrink tubing
The Shamanic Microbes Sports Bar, 2024
Performance, pickle juice flavored recovery ferment, installation, sound