THE START OF THE NEW PROJECT

November. 2021.

 

Rough outline of Project idea...

 

Research and formation of new a multi site Project exploring the taste of the past, using new technologies and community archaeology to connect local communities to the past through taste and touch. 

 

Following the migration of Gabbroic Clay throughout the neolithic to the roman period, across the southwest, we will establish connections with community groups, once part of this ancient social material practice. Connecting these disparate communities through their ancient shared heritage for the first time in over a thousand years. We will collectively be Investigating the food stored, prepared, cooked and eaten out of this pottery across the southwest. Exploring ways to connect to the past in new and novel ways. 

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This new project in influenced by the Korean ‘son-mat’, translated as Hand Taste, it is the concept that each meal, prepared by hand will be influenced by that hand. You may have your grandmothers apple pie recipe but you’ll never make it like she did. 

 

Its with that touch of hand that we will explore the technological advances in archaeology. We may now be able to 3D print an exact copy of a ancient ceramic vessel, we may even be able to decipher what was last stored or cooked within it. But without experimental archaeology, we may never know what that pot felt like to the person who made it, or the feel of it in your hands knowing it was made by your now departed grandparent. We may be able to put together a recipe, but we’ll never know the way in which those ingredients were added to the pan, that slight of hand with seasoning, or how the sun sat in the sky that summer as the fruit ripened.