For the first half of 2014, our studio collective Studio Manifold worked with the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. We began with a series of off-site workshops with local residents dealing with pots and seriation (a way of telling the era of an archaeological site by the forms of the vessels found there). The work culminated in an exhibition at UCL during the Petrie’s Festival of Pots on the weekend of 7 June 2014. The next stage was new work made in response to Petrie, his collection and the museum, exhibited amongst the collection and around UCL, entitled Pots and Possibilities.
Alongside the artwork Cradle, part of my response to Petrie’s pot collection was the hand-building of several fermenting jars and cauldrons. I bought some sourdough bread starter bacteria and began to make bread. Katy Jennings, also resident at Manifold had made some ancient Egyptian-style terracotta bread moulds, and I used them during the festival to bake sourdough bread, enough for all the visitors. Manifold artists Sun-Ae Kim and Bethan Lloyd Worthington contributed home-made Kimchi and ancient Egyptian style spicy ginger beer for the jars.
