As a visual representation of this often-overlooked story, a set of table linens—comprising a tablecloth and napkins—rests beneath our plates and food, silently absorbing the grease and remnants of the tales brought to our table.
Much of the food we consume today is the result of centuries of selective breeding, a process through which individual traits were combined and refined to create the organisms we now recognise. Yet, our understanding of food history remains vague and ambiguous, leading us to overlook how these stories—often cruel, bizarre, tragic, or inspiring—have shaped what we eat.
One key figure in this narrative is the Brassicaceae family, a group of flowering plants from which vegetables like cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and kohlrabi emerged. These staples of modern cuisine were crafted through hybrid crossings of a single species: the wild cabbage.
The stories behind the food we consume are akin to myths, shrouded in ambiguity and often forgotten. They remind us of how far removed we are from the origins of what ultimately appears on our plates.
new mythologies of touristification
I had a dream of Sierra Nevada, a place I’ve never visited and a growing desire to go there. But questioning myself whether to travel to Spain or not, if there’s such a thing like bad and good tourist, I decided to explore Sierra Nevada in other ways like dreaming, researching and reading legends surrounding those mountains.
The outcome of this research is a book in which the line between the real and the imaginary becomes really thin; fortune tellers and metamorphosis, magical teapots, touristic guides and talking animals will carry you to a far away paradise that went lost after the arrival of mass tourism.
Recycled cardboard is used for packaging, keeping the book secured in a sleeve that allows the fitting of bigger books. The book sleeve itself is waterproof, made out of recycled camping mattresses with a button magnetic closure.
The bay of Palma is one of the most touristified places of Mallorca. Not far from hotels, parking lots and plastic sun beds, the rocky coast on the east end of the island served as a quarry almost eight hundred years ago; signs of this extraction process are still visible today.
What goes unnoticed are the consequences of another extractive activity: through the years, the collection of seashells, rocks and sea urchin skeletons led to the almost-total disappearance of sea urchins.
The peformance took place at the Sludge Sanctuary, “a sacred place of utmost importance for human collectivity. A site of a multispecies collaboration, where bacterias are the enchanters performing purgatory magic.”
Visitors were guided in the darkness towards a location to listen and watch the illustrated story that was beamed on a water tank.