Recipes for Survival – Artistic Research between Activism and Relational Aesthetics

To mark its 50th anniversary in 2020, instead of an exhibition, the Serpentine Galleries in London conceived a long-term project consisting of more than 60 artistic initiatives and campaigns that address climate change and its complex web of causes and consequences at the intersection of art, activism, and research. On its website, the project is described as “both a program about change and a catalyst for change” with the aspiration “[to] become a prototype that can be translated or applied throughout other organizations.”[1]

One of the initiatives assembled within this framework is the “Climavore” project by the artist duo Cooking Sections, a multiyear campaign that explores and visually reveals systems of food production in light of man-made climate responses in a variety of ways – side specific installations, performances, video and sound works, lectures as well as happenings that include local craftmanship and activistic activities. Beyond this, however, they are also approaching the infrastructure of the museum as an institution: Inspired by their research carried out under the title “Salmon: A Red Herring” as part of the “Climavore” project, which deals with intensive salmon farming and its ecological impact on the coasts of Scotland, they initiated “Becoming Climavore” as an artistic project that modifies the menus of the museum cafes and restaurants by replacing salmon dishes and developing alternative recipes with ingredients from regenerative aquacultures such as seaweed or oysters. So far, 21 museums across the UK joined the project.

Curator Lucia Pietroiusti, who is responsible for the Serpentine Galleries’ sustainable programme and strategy “General Ecology” argues accordingly for such initiatives, seeing the label of “art” as a Trojan horse in this regard which provides a certain freedom for agency that is harder to achieve through administrative or political action. The museum becomes thus a sort of enabler for such activities by providing financial support, networks, and legitimation. The focus and self-perception of museal work shifts here from the output-oriented conception of exhibitions to a broader web of activities and cultural programmes that testify to the recognition of the institution’s societal responsibility.

I consider the field of food production, which is tied to the cultural technique of cooking, to be very exciting and insightful regarding questions of sustainability, especially with regard to the tension between personal and collective morality, as well as the self-image of mankind in its relationship to nature. Through food consumption, it becomes clear in a materialistic sense how much mankind is also part of its surroundings. The conceptual artistic instruction becomes interesting here in the form of the recipe. In an interview with curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, Cooking Sections states: “What is interesting about the score is that it’s something thatneeds to be rehearsed, embodied, and performed by people, normally lots of people. Recipes in our practice function like this: not just prescribing what you eat, but also aiming to change the way we produce, consume, and imagine food collectively.” [2]

For Serpentine’s “Back to Earth” project, the artist duo created an instruction piece in form of a recipe that uses beetroot to dye the urine of the executer. They refer to Yves Klein’s “Blue Cocktail” (1958) and take the human metabolism as a starting point to reflect on the treatment of other species, in this case farmed salmon whose flesh is synthetically dyed to maintain the human illusion that the fish comes from an intact ecosystem.

The aim of a more detailed engagement with these kinds of projects is to gain insight into contemporary artistic eco-activism that is aware of the complex entanglements of its content, productively activates the institutional infrastructure of the museum space that surrounds the works and brings them into contact with civil society initiatives. In relation to Nicholas Bourriaud’s theoretical concept of “Relational Aesthetics”, the analysis of several case studies will examine the extent to which the “ecological imperative” nevertheless does not design a purely individual morality of responsibility in such works, but rather works on collective change and social imaginaries – for which the museum space is of central importance. I draw here on the findings of my master’s thesis on the artistic work of Adrian Piper, who has very consistently investigated all the parameters of art production and its political dimension in her artistic practice since the 1960s, with a particular focus on addressing the viewer with the goal “[to induce] change in the viewer.” In an in-depth analysis, however, I was able to show that despite the political motivation, no strict moral imperative was formed there, but rather the viewers were confronted with a thought-provoking impulse to reflect on their own actions by being cast back to themselves.

1 https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/back-to-earth/ [22.04.2022]

2 Hans Ulrich Obrist: Foreword, in: Salmon: A Red Herring, ed. Cooking Sections, New York: isolarii books.

Key Words: Relational Aesthetics, Artivism, Artistic Research, Ecology, Museology, Materiality, Network Theory, Circulation, Metabolism, Embodiment, more-than-human consciousness, Activation, Collective imagination, Senses, food production, instruction / score / recipe