Placed next to each other in duos, one person was blindfolded and the other one was providing that missing sense and guiding the blind. We wanted to find out if and how a narrative can affect what you touch, smell and taste. The results were individually different, but all equally interesting. Touching and tasting white miso suddenly felt like salty sand in your mouth and an oyster mushroom wrapped in nuri leaves became a tasty fresh-caught fish.
Magdalena working on different shapes with clay -
Experiments with different structures - can you feel the fish? -
And while our minds were still at the beach (or, at least at one of the various Koningsdag boats that we could see from our working space), Martin’s mind miraculously wandered to the year 1590 and the poem “The Faerie Queene” with its seven deadly sins. From the deadly sins it was only a short way to the ritual of sin-eating and the belief that one can take on the sins of a deceased person through the consumption of food. A very early form of detox, so to speak.
A walk around the Biotoop eventually brought Martin to our Hortus Dijkspark, which reminded him of an exhibition about Hildegard von Bingen that he had visited back in Berlin. Hildegard von Bingen is often proclaimed to be Germany’s very first nutritionist, and although that description doesn’t do her genius justice, broad knowledge about the healing properties of certain foods was indeed amongst her various skills. And so, the seed was planted.
Read more about day three here.