| Where | |
| Language | English |
| Access | Free |
| Booking required | a.wester@mudam.com |
© Grace Gloria Denis
Aural Oral
Denis Grace Gloria
Performance-workshop by Grace Gloria Denis
In the framework of Dodeka, 12 Works for 12 Cantons
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As part of the Dodeka programme, artist and researcher Grace Gloria Denis presents a new iteration of Aural Oral in collaboration with Frank Adams of SEED asbl. Taking the cabbage variety Beurré de Jalhay as a catalyst for conversations around domestication and the phenomenon of opposition between diversity and technology, the workshop centres on a variety documented since 1934 in the Hautes Fagnes region, absent from the official EU seed catalogue and surviving through citizen-run seed-saving networks.
In dialogue with On Kawara's One Million Years, a work that inscribes time as accumulation, the event proposes an immersive encounter with the Beurré de Jalhay, composed of a listening session and tasting. Whereas Kawara counts years one by one, the seed of the cabbage counts in generations; its duration measured by the hands it has passed through, the winters survived, the tables that have tended its presence. Together, the two works convene to ask whtat it entails for something to persist, and what is lost when it does not.
Biography
Grace Gloria Denis’ work converges agricultural research with interactive installation, braiding together edible matter and sound to propose a convivial and comestible approach to critical inquiry. Implementing the meal as both a medium and a pedagogical tool, her work refers to participatory action research models, engaging in collaborations with actors in local food systems utilizing agroecological techniques. Her work considers the quotidien interaction with the esculent realm as a political and poetic tool of transmission, inviting a reframing of sensorial relations to consumption practices. Denis received her BFA from Cal Arts and her MFA from TRANS— at HEAD Genève, with a focus on critical pedagogy. Her post-graduate studies include ETH’s World Food Systems Center in Switzerland as well as agroecology at Las Cañadas in Mexico. She has taught and developed non-profit arts education programs for various institutions, currently working on an ecopedagogy project linked with HEAD Genève. She recently published the book In, From, and With: Exploring Collaborative Survival and is a member of the Food Art Research Network.