de/trans/re/val

declare

transform

recognise

value

Introduction

The word radicle is botanical.

The word radical is political or social.

Where they overlap is in the connotation of a ‘new’ and ‘first’ emergence of life force.

We are interested in installation, performance, conversation and ritual as means to create participatory art.

View our advert in the Totnes Festival brochure………………

Come see our collective actions on

SATURDAY, 3rd September

from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm at

BIRDWOOD HOUSE, High Street, Totnes

Set menu

August 31^st

A Last Supper Centrepiece

 

 

The preparations for the celebration on Saturday are in full swing, and Last Supper is now truly a collaborative project, involving 7 people creating and serving their dishes with style. It should be a feast of interesting food, tasting, conversation and exchange of ideas. Not everyone will want to dine but there are 12 dining spaces around the feast table, so those interested in a place should arrive a bit before 12 noon. EVERYONE IS WELCOME TO WATCH and then stay and browse and maybe taste afterwards.

Here is the menu.

A Last Supper

A celebration meal of culinary delights and dainties created with flair and imagination from the vulgar weed, which promises to be truly different, delicious, stylish, surprising, amusing and serious.

‘Canapes’– Rachel Woodhouse

……

‘Cordial’– Sue Deakin

‘Elderberry Cordial’

‘Soup’ – Sue Coulson

Burning Hot Urtica or Chilled Watercress

‘Poultry’ – Elizabeth Lancaster Thomas

……

‘Green Salad’ – Sue Deakin

Mixed Green Leaf Salad

‘Entrée’ – Elizabeth Lancaster Thomas

……

‘Amuse Bouche’ – Yasmin Biggins

Gorse Flower jellies with edible flowers

‘Dainties’– Rachel Woodhouse

……

‘Cake’–Sian Lewis

Foeniculum Vulgare Delectatio/Fennel Delight

‘Pudding’ – Rachel Cornish

Maple Murple’s Whirling Whortles

‘Fruit Pudding’ – Sue Coulson

Bramleberry Pudding

‘Cake’– Patricia Chu

Tansy cake

Wild weeds, last of the summer

August 1^st

 

Last Supper is simply a feast, a celebration and a sharing, an excuse to gather around a table, to take part inan exchange of food and ideas, to listen and to receive with grace what is offered.

 

This project really began several years ago when I became seduced by the intense yellow of spring dandelions. I picked every one which grew on my lawn and laid out the flowers in rows on my studio floor trying to preserve the yellow colour. But the idea was flawed since nature is transient and cannot be controlled, the yellow flowers withered, faded, turned white, shed their seeds, stalks shrivelled and died. I began to question the popular definition of a weed being in the ‘wrong’ place and to wonder if perhaps this attitude towards weeds was a reflection of man’s own fragility.

 

Even though it has been suggested that it might be interpreted in this way, there is no intended biblical reference to the project, although embedded at its core lies the possibility of a multiple interpretation. ‘Last Supper’ was me, wondering whether if this really WAS the last meal we could ever have, and if like our ancestors, we WERE dependent upon weeds for food, would this be a celebration or a free for all?

 

What is a weed? A trite popular definition is “a plant in the wrong place,” but “what is the ‘right’ place,” and, “anyway it all depends what you mean by a weed. How, why and where we classify plants as undesirable, reflects our ceaseless attempts to draw boundaries between nature and culture, wildness and domestication.”

 

‘Civilized man’ has always tried to make an order of wildness by imposing taboos, boundaries, laws. Metaphorically perhaps, ‘weeds’ reside in this territory of wildness, beyond the ordered enclosure of a civilised society. Lawless, with no respect for territorial boundaries, weeds are resilient and subversive, and able to diversify and colonize, they ‘use multiple strategies for getting their own way,’ thriving in the wastelands and on the edges of civilization.

 

This project is suggesting “turn, and look again.” Perhaps the weed deserves our respect, perhaps there is a beauty unseen, and perhaps a weed is simply ‘a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.’ Existing before earliest man, they were a rich source of food and medicine which sustained our ancestors for centuries.

Weeds give something back. Land denuded of its natural vegetation will eventually turn to desert. Environmentalists stress that earth with no plants quickly dries out and becomes impoverished. Weeds clothe bare earth, protect and nurture the areas that man has scarred and ‘made war’ on. Living on the edges and between territories, these outsiders adapt and evolve in order to force change and enrich ‘cultivated’ areas with a multi-cultural diversity.

 

Like nature, Last Supper is constantly evolving and changing. The outcome is unpredictable, influenced by the choice of food in the wild at the beginning of September this year, who will come to dine, and who is willing to participate. Also like nature, it is transient, will be over in an hour, and like the weeds we shall be eating, it will be just what it is.

 

 

We should celebrate. Let’s have fun.

 

Handshakes–Prana Simon

In Handshakes, the conscious effort is to make someTHING of a gesture, a convention, a courtesy, a uniquely human act across cultures.

Does making this act visible and memorable change its meaning?

Does it become a currency?

A declaration? A memento?

What do these concordes mean after the fact?

Must we create a ‘contract’ for people to shake to?…to give their assent and agreement to?

What would that be…something they decide or something they join?

Is the handshake a promise? What does the Past declare to the Present? and what does the Present promise the Future?

Prana Simon is interested in Arts & Ecology as an interdisciplinary field. She teaches subjects in both the arts and sciences and explores the expression of a concorde between them.

To see more:  http://cabinexchange.randomstate.org/mashow09/participants/pranasimon.html

declare

 

Recognising Resilience Award–Janey Hunt

Resilience is one of those catchwords few understand. 

Through the principle of exchange and real experiences using participation, narrative, and image, this artwork encourages people to recommend an award for an act or item or repair that demonstrates resilience in our local community. By describing and recording a specific experience the award is intended to demonstrate and encourage resilience in Totnes, and through example–encourage an economy more focused towards resilience than consumption.

Janey is a socially engaged artist and recently completed her practice based PhD at Plymouth University and is facilitator of TTT Arts Group amongst many other activities.

www.escapelane.co.uk and http://www.escapelane.co.uk/?page_id=773

recognise

Last Supper–Sue Coulson

Last Supper is a symbolic meal, which shares in the celebration of the humble weed.

A feast of words and unconventional food, it investigates the concept of territory and “get one free.”

Last Supper invites a revaluing of popular ideas surrounding worth and possession, in order to elevate the status of ‘wild’ and ‘dangerous’ plants.

Sue Coulson works with recurring themes surrounding identity. As part of a body of work, she continues to explore the sometimes flawed relationship between human beings and the natural world.

Selected for MA Stars, she graduated from Plymouth University in 2008.

www.suecoulson.co.uk or http://www.axisweb.org/mastars

value

Bonfire of the Anxieties–Clover Bird Bartlett

Bonfire of the Anxieties is a ritual based art workshop lasting approximately 75 minutes. Participants will be guided to identify and create ways to move through–and begin to transform–some of the anxieties which separate us from deep contentment.

Clover has 25 years experience as an artist, teacher and workshop leader as well as a long-term engagement with Native American Shamanic practices. Clover’s approach to this work is informed by her deepest and most enduring relationships: with land, the elements, weather, animals and the flow of pathways to the heart.

transform

www.horsedrawninitiative.co.uk