Since 2016 I have explored the links between museum buildings, bread tradition and ritual through the project “Before I Die I Shall Bake a Museum”. The project is still active and takes it form in a variety of ways. The material investigation examines the meeting point between dough and building components, exploring the crossroad between material, function and idea. It is grounded in my overall practice through my interest in exhibition design, museum function and architectural history.
“Before I Die I Shall Bake a Cathedral”, are the words by the Swedish poet Edith Södergran (1892–1923) from her poem Hope which gave the initial spark for my baking-based artistic endeavours. The poet writes about the rising dough and what a shame it is that she cannot bake a cathedral. My project plays with the actual possibilities of baking a building. By exploring what buildings of power exist within the art communities of today that could be baked in the place of the cathedral I challenge our sensory and intellectual perception of it. Should it be a museum, another type of art institution, the gallery, or perhaps the artist’s studio? And what ritualistic and hierarchical transformation happens when you get to eat these buildings?
On site site you can see several examples of how the project has been shown and explored publicly throughout the years.
On International Women's Day, March 8 2023, I highlighted the sourdough mother through a workshop in collaboration with Norrköping's Art Museum and Verkstad Konsthall. The tradition of women “in the kitchen” and the role of the mothering housewife in culture is examined through the origin of bread - the sourdough mother. In the workshop the participants were invited to reactive a dried sourdough that had been made from scratch within the museum walls incapsulating the bacterias within the space. The reactivated sourdough was then taken home by the participants, fed and were used as starters for sourdough bread, bringing the museum into their homes and bellies.
Site specific installation made for Norrköping Art Museum in Sweden.
22.10.2022-16.04.2023
Installation consisted of: 7 pieces of bread, 7 clay forms, a sound pice of chewing, dried sourdough made from the air in the museum.
Photo: Mats Arvidsson, Norrköpings Konstmuseum & the artist.
MAY 27-30, 2021 JENISCH MUSEUM
The work, composed of the ceramic molds and the baked breads, will be on display at the Jenisch Museum, while backstage images and a poem-recipe piece are available below.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
A baking-based artistic endeavor inspired by the words of Swedish poet Edith Södergran (1892–1923) in her poem “Hope”, when she describes the rising dough and her frustrations with its height, stating “Before I Die I Shall Bake a Cathedral”. Ongoing since 2016, the project takes its form in a variety of ways, but always grounded in the artist’s overall practice driven by her interests in exhibition design, museum function, and architectural history. The project plays with actual possibilities of baking an existing building that symbolize power within current art communities — instead of a cathedral. Challenging our sensory and intellectual perceptions, her process raised questions like: should it be a museum, another type of art institution, the gallery, or perhaps the artist’s studio? And what ritualistic and hierarchical transformation happens when you get to eat these buildings? It’s a material investigation on converging components of dough and construction, baking and building, exploring the crossroad between material, function, and idea. The work involves the use of ceramic molds based on art institution’s architectural references that were made by the artist for the Jenisch Museum in collaboration with Guillaume Ediger and baking actual breads with them in collaboration with baker Melanie Wehrli in Vevey.
https://www.fromtheforestsashes.com
Photos: Gal Sherizly and Marie Capesius
- How to Eat a Museum -
Find a museum that tickles your fancy, whose potential mouthfeel interests you, that you would like to taste. What of its qualities would you like to sample?
I now want you to explore the building and its context. Is it a building of power for your communities today? Or does it delve in the past? Does it only have one function or many? What powers does it hold that you would like to acquire through eating it?
Get close to the building, smell it, run its corners between your fingertips, taste it with your tongue.
Make an imitation of the part of the building in clay in 1:1 scale, the part that got stuck in your senses. Let the clay dry and burn it in a kiln.
Find a bucket. Use flour, water, salt and yeast - mimic the museums texture, colour, tension and meaning. Mix it together and work it into the dough through kneading it like an aching body for as long as it takes to loosen its tension.
Put it to bed by folding it twice and put a towel on the bucket. Let the dough rest for a few hours and grow in size. Take it out of its bucket by gently patting it and moving it out if its rest to a floured table. Fold it gently a few times to make it wake up and move it into a shape that would fit into the clay form you previously made.
Put the clay form in the oven and preheat it to 250 degrees. Take out the form and gently put your dough in the form. Put it all back in the oven and lower the temperature to 200 degrees.
Let the bread bake in the oven for about 30 mins until its inner temperature is about 93 degrees. It is now ready to take out of the oven. Does it smell like you remember your museum to smell? Does it look like it has the same texture?
When the bread has cooled down a little you should be able to take it out of the form, keeping the shape of the chosen part of your museum.
Let it cool fully. This is such an important part of the breads creation that is rarely spoken about: the setting stage when it fully develops its true form. Once it has cooled down it is time to for the eating to commence. Break off part of the block and taste it, preferably while watching the museum in front of you.
Does it hold the sensory and intellectual qualities you longed for? Or are you longing for something else? Would you like art to take place and be valued in a different space?
You are now eating your museum. Hope you find its taste and texture strengthening.
- by Louise Waite -
This written piece is part of the project Before I Die I Shall Bake a Museum by artist Louise Waite (se). For almost a year she has been preparing to bake Musée Jenisch Vevey in Switzerland for foodculture days. In May 2021 she hopes her efforts will come to fruition through the hands of the people of Vevey.
“Before I Die I Shall Bake a Cathedral”, the words by the Swedish poet Edith Södergran (1892–1923) from her poem Hope, gave the initial spark for my baking-based artistic endeavours. The poet writes about the rising dough and what a shame it is that she cannot bake a cathedral. My project plays with the actual possibilities of baking a building. She has been considering what buildings of power exist within the art communities of today that could be baked in the place of a cathedral. Should it be a museum, another type of art institution, the gallery, or perhaps the artist’s studio? What happens when you get to eat these buildings?
In this project I started by carefully examining the context in question, and highlights their different spatial, social, and temporal layers. For Fiskars, I creates a version of my ongoing ‘baking a museum’ project, in which I explore the relationship between human-made buildings, bread, and ritual. I baked small-scale sculptures using moulds created from selected architectural details of the Granary.
Photo credit: Kerttu Penttilä / Luovi Productions
(bread, charcoal, clay, beetroot, wood, butter, paper, plaster)
Photos by: Sergio Urbina | HIAP / Louise Waite
Part of the project Before I Die I Shall Bake a Museum. Exhibited during HIAP Open Studios (Finland), August 2018. www.hiap.fi
For Food Culture Days in Nov 2020 I made a radio piece called The Slow Cooking School: The Sourdough in collaboration with Oskar Johansson.
It can be listened to in full here: https://www.mixcloud.com/radio40/fcd-louise-waite-the-slow-cooking-school-the-sourdough-20201126/
“During a time when we find ourselves spending most of our time at home and having the possibility to slow down our fast-phased lives I present The Slow Cooking School. Instead of following the format of regular cooking shows with lots of prepared material and making everything in one session this programme consisting of 5 sessions will take place when the things actually happen. During FCD we will make a sourdough starter of 4 days with each session being broadcasted during the time when the action needs to take place aka Thursday morning + evening, Friday morning, Saturday morning and finally Sunday morning.”
For a couple of years now, I have explored the links between museum buildings, bread tradition and ritual. “Before I Die I Shall Bake a Cathedral”, are the words by the Swedish poet Edith Södergran (1892–1923) from her poem Hope which gave the initial spark for my baking-based artistic endeavours. The poet writes about the rising dough and what a shame it is that she cannot bake a cathedral. My project plays with the actual possibilities of baking a building. By exploring what buildings of power exist within the art communities of today that could be baked in the place of the cathedral I challenge our sensory and intellectual perception of it. Should it be a museum, another type of art institution, the gallery, or perhaps the artist’s studio? And what ritualistic and hierarchical transformation happens when you get to eat these buildings?
The project is ongoing since 2016 and takes it form in a variety of ways. It is grounded in my overall practice through my interest in exhibition design, museum function and architectural history. The material investigation examines the meeting point between dough and building components, exploring the crossroad between material, function and idea.
Galleri BOX, 10 Jan - 9 Feb, 2020
Photos: Hendrik Zeitler