ALCHEMY

NURTURING NATURE: Artists Engage the Environment

2011-01-24T18:55:00.002+01:00

Showing Alchemy - the poetics of bread at the OSilas Gallery, Bronxville, New York, 10th February - 16th April 2011.
" For the past several decades environmentalists have foreseen an impending disaster of epic proportions if and when the planet becomes truly unable to sustain life. The artists in this exhibition are focused on healing our relationship with the living eco-system, recognizing that our very existence depends upon its survival. Their works attempt to bridge the gap between art and life by raising an appreciation of the natural world and by engaging in a collaborative or nurturing process with nature. This exhibition will focus on various spiritual or ethical traditions in relationship to our care of the planet, what Christianity terms “stewardship”, Tikkun Olam or “repair the world” in Judaism and in Buddhism, “compassion for all sentient beings”."
http://osilasgallery.org/mysitecaddy/site3/exhibitionsupcoming.

350.org’s International Day of Climate Action at ecoartspace NYC

2009-10-23T19:48:00.002+02:00

Alchemy showing at Ecoartspace, NYC, as their marking of the the 350 Climate Action Day.
350.org’s International Day of Climate Action at ecoartspace NYC

Wild and Scenic Film Festival

2009-10-17T01:04:00.003+02:00

"Alchemy" has been chosen as an official selection for the 8th Annual Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival being held in Nevada City, CA on January 15-17, 2010.

Globians Doc Festival

2009-06-03T11:13:00.008+02:00

Alchemy will be showing at the Globians Doc Festival in Berlin on Thursday, 13 August 2009, 18.30 at Kino Toni, Antonplantz. Might see you there!
http://www.globians.com/Globians/Globians%20Doc%20Fest%20Berlin.html

ALCHEMY AT MoMA NEW YORK

2009-03-16T23:44:00.003+01:00

Panel discussion after screening at MoMA with curator Candida Paltiel and Catherine Van Campen.

Alchemy was screened in duo with Eternal Mash by Catherine van Campen (http://www.zuidenwind.nl/films/?taal=en&id=69). The films complemented eachother really well, both dealing with the poetry of life and the dying connection between nature and culture. New Yorkers make great and observant audiences with poignant questions. The response was constructive and delightful! Thanks to curator Sally Berger and Candida Paltiel for a great event.

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/660

MIXED GREENS

2009-03-16T23:39:00.002+01:00

Alchemy will be screening at: Mixedgreens - a selection of food-themed films from Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival on the 27th of March at 6:45pm, Gardiner Museum, Toronto. http://www.planetinfocus.org/mixedgreens

The Art of Bread Making

2009-01-25T22:35:00.001+01:00

Check out The Art of Bread Making by Peter Reinhart.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/peter_reinhart_on_bread.html

THE VALUE OF BREAD

2008-10-02T15:31:00.017+02:00

King Ramses Bakery

“Food and land and labour and human dignity are the only real sources of value but we trade those for cash hardly giving a thought for our children, our air, our water. But we can’t eat cash, no matter how much we make! So the value of bread is not in the price, but in the inherent integrity of the cycle, from seed to grain to mill to dough, into my stomach and back out to the soil, via my composting toilet.”

Kiko Denzer

ALCHEMY

2008-10-02T15:16:00.009+02:00

I was brought up with bread making being an existential, and therefore integral, part of the weeks work. My grandmother baked, my mother baked and even my father baked bread. Not just one at the time but often in batches of 6, that filled the house with the unmistakable aroma of yeast and freshly made bread.

I once read that the grain looses 40% of its nutritional value, i.e. energy, only a week after the husk of the grain has been broken and milled into flour. A lot of the flour we buy have been milled months ago and stored badly in too warm and light conditions and have consequently lost a lot of its original energy. The only solution is to eat bread made from freshly, ground flour. 10 years ago I was given an electric grain grinder; a beautiful, wooden contraption with a stone mill inside.
This transformed my bread making into an aesthetic experience where every part of the process revealed its own richness of beauty. This is a ritual that I, or my husband, has performed weekly - often aided by our children who have had the important role of stopping the flour overflowing while being milled and then mixing all the dry ingredients together. Whilst doing my MA in Dartington, UK, I didn´t bake, and thinking of the process in perspective compelled me to follow it with a film camera. I did not want to reproduce the process as I remembered it. Neither did I want to create a romantic propaganda film or an information video to teach people how to make bread. I simply wanted to observe my own experience in the process of making bread and to communicate the sensation, the energy and subtle transitions from one matter to another - the chain of physical and interactive events creating a whole coupled with the magic - the alchemy of bread making.

BREAD AS SOCIAL SCULPTURE

2008-10-01T23:34:00.022+02:00

Read more about my breadwork on www.evabakkeslett.com - Work/Projects - The Poetics of Bread

COMPANION

2008-10-01T21:22:00.005+02:00

Did you know that the Arabic words for “bread” and “life” is the same – aysh. The Russian word for hospitality – khlyeb-sol – means bread and salt and it is still customary there to greet any visitors with a piece of bread and salt. The Latin roots for companion also leads us to the sharing of bread, com meaning with and pani – bread.

SENSIBLE PERSPECTIVES

2008-10-01T15:58:00.015+02:00

Baking bread is a cross-cultural and ancient art that deserves to be celebrated and acknowledged as a universal art form. Good bread provides the needed glue between life and art, it creates social bonds and restores the loss of sensibility and meantime that is lacking in our efficient and homogenized world. By baking our own bread we reconnect with our soil, soul and our senses. I call it "sensible perspectives". I do not mean sensible in the way we have come to understand the word but sensible as in being awake, aware and alert with the capacity to expand our consciousness and perceive through our senses. Baking bread is a wholesome, aesthetic experience. Everyone can be an artist through sculpting, baking and sharing bread.

Bread is the art that goes beyond the walls of the gallery and onto our kitchen table.

ABOUT THE FILM ALCHEMY

2008-10-01T15:30:00.017+02:00

Alchemy is a short film celebrating the poetics of bread. The film is a poetic evocation on the alchemy of bread and brings the act of baking the most basic of staples, into a high art form. Here nature and human culture collude. Hands pounding, mixing, kneading and stretching, reveal the choreographed rhythms and movements of bread making. Alchemy is a beautifully executed and lyrical film about an activity once ubiquitous in almost every household.It follows the process of making and baking bread where nature and culture magically unify. The film reveals how baking bread can be poetic, beautiful, foster slowness, empathy, and connection to our environment and ourselves. It gives a timeless account of the lyrical process and the "spaces in between" that makes bread the art that goes beyond the walls of the gallery and onto our kitchen table.

The baker and filmmaker was brought up in Arctic Norway where baking bread used to be and some places still is ubiquitous to every household. Her rhythmical movements and reassured touch gives associations to dance and music and brings baking into the realms of poetry. It reminds us of the connections and traditional knowledge we have left behind, but also gives us the incentive and impetus to rediscover and reconnect to the ancient art of bread-baking.