Dough art of Santina Amato

Since hosting Bio Arts Birmingham this summer we’ve been coming across more artists who work with the living materials we make bread from. This week Rachel brought Santina Amato to everyone’s attention and we had to share her amazing work.

Her dough-based work begins with a durational performance where she filmed herself kneading her own weight in dough, culminating in her lying exhausted holding the dough as it rises and envelopes her. Click through for the videos.

This then led to her ongoing series, Portraits Of Women With Their Weight In Dough, where she works with women to make the dough which they then pose with over two hours. The resulting images are both absurd and profound, and the duration of time really emphasises how alive their globulous companion is.

If you come across any artists doing interesting work with dough, please let us know!

BAB Lab 2022 – bio art at Loaf

Laurie Ramsell is an artist who works with biological material. Until recently he was a Stirchley resident and became a good friend of Loaf. So when he approached us to be part of his new project we were intrigued and quickly agreed.

BAB Lab 2022 is a series of bio art workshops and talks taking place in Birmingham this August. They will focus on living materials: yeast, flora, clay, fungi, and the human body. The yeast workshop takes place at Loaf and will be our the first time teaching breadmaking as an artistic pursuit!

Laurie is also bringing in practitioners to talk about creative brewing and, most excitingly, using yeast to develop photographic images by selectively exposing them to UV light. You can see some examples of ‘yeastograms’ here.

We’ll have more to share about this nearer the time, but it’s dead exciting. Maybe we’ll be adding yeast art to our courses on offer in the future!

More about BAB Lab.

Bone Meal

Check out this crazy menu for a food event tomorrow night in Digbeth. Shame I can’t go, but if you’re going i’d love to hear how it goes:

The Bone Dinner takes place at Eastside Projects on Friday 5 November at 7pm. To make a booking—tickets are £25—or for more info please visit www.companis.co.uk

In 1971 Gordon Matta-Clark co-founded Food, in SoHo, New York, a restaurant managed and staffed by artists. For two years the restaurant sought to make dining a unique experience, serving imaginative menus from an open kitchen. Next Friday at Eastside Projects, Birmingham-based artist-curator duo Companis present an evening of experimental eating in the spirit of one of Food’s famous events. Bone Dinner pulls together food designers, artists, performers, caterers and a jeweller to deliver a luxurious seven course bone-based menu, that you can even wear home. London-based foodies Blanch & Shock are preparing the feast, while after each course artists Juneau Projects and jeweller Elizabeth Short will be cleaning, drilling and stringing the bones that will surely become this season’s must-have fashion accessories. 70s primitivism is so hot right now.

In Our Backyard art exhibition

Received this news from local artist and foodie Eleanor Hoad yesterday, so thought I’d share it with you in full. We should do more food swapping events in Birmingham shouldn’t we, what do you think?

The ‘In Our Backyard’ exhibition at BMAG is the culmination of a year-long residency taking place within 4 constituencies around Birmingham. Community groups within the constituencies of Perry Barr, Erdington, Ladywood and Hodge Hill have worked closely with 4 artists in a series of art activities and projects that will be showcased in this exhibition and throughout the museum.

In Erdington, Eleanor Hoad’s ‘Prepare’ residency explored ways in which we can feed ourselves in the city and celebrate our local harvests. Inspired by urban Permaculture and traditional celebrations around growing food, Eleanor created a fruit harvesting, processing and distributing scheme using unwanted local fruit.

This Saturday come along to see the exhibition and take part in the Prepare Swapshop with Eleanor Hoad Saturday 24th April 2010, 11am – 4pm in the Learning Zone

A drop in swapshop with Eleanor Hoad, artist from the In Our Backyard exhibition, showing in the Community Gallery. Bring along to swap: fruit recipes old and new, jars of homemade pickle, jam or chutney, seeds saved from your own plants or leftovers in a packet and empty plastic vegetable trays to plant your own mini herb bed. Make your own decorated paper bag to take your swaps home.

The Community Gallery showcases the talent of our communities and provides an insight into our rich local neighbourhoods through an exciting programme of exhibitions and events. Displays are created in collaboration with community groups, inviting new audiences and visitors to interact and explore artworks and subject matter.

In Our Backyard runs from 10th April to the 4th July.

The Community Gallery
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Chamberlain Square
Birmingham B3 3DH
0121 303 2834