dai hall, Unit 29/30, The Piazza, Huddersfield, HD1 2RS (across the green field from the Huddersfield Library)
The exhibition will run from the 24th of June to the 4th of July. To visit, please book a half day slot via Eventbrite. Link to booking page.
Installation:
In Yorkshire, it is traditional that rhubarb plants grow in dark shades in February and March as part of a process known as forcing. During the first year/s, the buds grow in the daylight, but after being exposed to frost, they are moved into dim barns to encourage their starch production and growth. In forcing, the stems become exceptionally tall and sweet and acquire a red-pinkish colour. Due to their remarkable strength the stems make a popping sound as they grow, which is as unique as their colour and flavour. The installation focuses on the recorded sounds of rhubarbs and on sine waves used in horticulture to stimulate the crops. It invites the spectator to an immersive soothing experience in a space pervaded by dark-thriving plants, soil from rhubarb crops, vibrating resonances and ethereal sounds. In the wake of ecological philosophies and speculative ontologies, plants suggest modes of being that invite us to establish more reciprocal and ecological relations with our habitat.
Click here to find out more about this research.
Workshop, talk and concert – 4th July.
Flavour as means of communication Workshop
Ruchi Singh, David Veìlez
July 4th16:00-17:00
AME Dai Hall
Plants communicate with us through flavour. Maize, tea, potato, and rhubarb have coevolved with humans using it to establish alliances that have helped both species thrive. Flavour is critical in the social circumstances of migration, establishing means of communication that help subvert cultural biases in the hosting community towards the diaspora. It is the case when Indian and Caribbean immigrants in the UK experiencing racism offered food to their persecutors, helping to develop more inclusive and empathetic communities.
This workshop invites the participants to explore gustatory experiences as a means of communication and storytelling. Ruchi will welcome them to her hometown in India and guide them across the trip that embarked her into Huddersfield utilising cooking. Additionally, music inspired by the sounds and flavours of Ruchi’s cooking will expand this multisensory experience. The assistants will use writing and drawing narratives to reflect on their luscious imaginary visit to India and their sensations navigating the vibrant assemblages of Asian migration to Britain.
Event 2
Singing in the Dark
Sonic art and culinary performance + Talk Ruchi Singh, David Veìlez
July 4th 17:30-19:00
AME Dai Hall
Talk: David will give a talk about his research in the acoustics of plants examining ideas from plant philosophy, bioacoustics, plant communication, coevolution, the ethics of interspecies cooperation and discussing artworks created in collaboration with vegetal life.
Performance: In Yorkshire, it is traditional that rhubarb plants grow in dark shades as part of a process known as forcing. After being exposed to frost, the buds are moved into dark shades to encourage starch production and growth. In forcing, the stems become exceptionally tall and sweet and acquire a red-pinkish colour result of the arithmetical energy calculations that rhubarbs perform in the absence of sunlight. The stems release acoustic energy after overproducing chemical energy, creating a sound that is as unique as their colour and flavour. David will perform using these sounds and recordings from farms where plants grow stimulated by sine waves; these sounds will blend with the cooking sounds of keer with rhubarb sweet, prepared by Ruchi.
David Vélez (PhD) is a Colombian sonic artist studying the acoustics of food, working in the intersection between sound ethnography and plant bioacoustics. His work oversteps the boundaries of installation art, field recordings, composition, performance and commensality exploring gardens, kitchens and open food markets as exhibition spaces. Vélez is interested in the strategic artistic possibility of sound and its invisible, immersive, unstable and fluctuating material, attributes shared with the nourishing transference of energy in food.
Ruchi Singh (born in India) is a researcher interested in connecting business research and culinary to develop interdisciplinary projects that help establish a critical position in the current social and environmental crisis. Ruchi believes that understanding colonial thought, privilege, and hegemony through the art of cuisine and sound, allows pinpointing these urgent matters in solidary, reflective, and proactive ways.
Duncan Chapman is a Lincoln based, freelance Composer, Sound Artist, Educator and Performer regularly works with many leading music organisations in Britain including The Philharmonia Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Royal Festival Hall, Spitalfields Music, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Wigmore Hall, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Sound Festival, Buxton Festival, BBC and Sound & Music. He is a frequent traveller to more exotic locations with projects and performances in Tokyo, Singapore, Budapest and throughout Europe.
