Courtesy Cherry Truluck


Date:  Tuesday, 8 November 2022
Times:  18:00-21:00
Location:  Delfina Foundation
Booking:  For booking information see below.
Access information:  Please refer to this page.

Under November’s Dark Moon, join UK associate artist Cherry Truluck for a performative feast and oat sowing ritual.

ABOUT

This event launches THE ANIMIST ALMANAC, a six-year programme of arts-based research and practice initiated by artist Cherry Truluck around oat cultivation and fugitive temporalities.

Connecting our urban context and the rural landscapes – where Cherry is growing and studying oats – rudimentary rhythms, the first phase of the programme, considers alternative ways of understanding the relations (rhythms) between time and space.

This evening gathering will commence with an oat-sowing ritual, collectively performed in a sonic landscape developed in collaboration with sound artist Helga Mendes daFonseca (Feralchild). Under the full moon, guests will be invited to plant seeds, grown by Cherry herself, in earth taken from the ground in Somerset where they were first nourished; completing one growth cycle and beginning another. This ritual will be followed by a feast celebrating oats, created in collaboration with chef Grace Gibbons (Spring, Maremma, Kitchen W8).

Envisaged as a reciprocal rather than transactional meal, this event is free, but guests are asked to contribute drinks to the table. More details below.

The past is never left behind, never finished once and for all, and the future is not what will come to be in an unfolding of the present moment; rather the past and the future are enfolded participants in matter’s iterative becoming. Becoming is not an unfolding in time, but the inexhaustible dynamism of the enfolding of mattering.” (Karen Barad, 2007)

PARTICIPATION

This meal will be a seated occasion, thus allowing only a limited number of attendees.

If you are interested in joining this event, please email events@delfinafoundation.com (subject line: Animist Almanac) with a few sentences about yourself and why you are interested in attending. We will confirm spaces by end-of-day on Friday 4 November.

Anyone with an interest in the event is most welcome, but Cherry is keen for the table to include those involved or interested in the cyclical processes of growing, seed-saving and composting – whether in community gardens, farms, science laboratories or on windowsills.

Dietary requirements
Please let us know of any dietary requirements in your email. Please note that the majority of the meal will be plant-based, with some elements including meat, fish or dairy. If you would like a fully plant-based meal please let us know. Whilst oats are themselves gluten-free, due to milling processes we cannot be sure that wheat contamination has not occurred. For this reason, we are unable to offer a gluten-free option on this occasion.

Drinks
As mentioned above, guests are invited to contribute to the evening’s drinks. In line with the evening’s theme, we suggest something that connects you across time and space. This might be wine that you associate with a particular memory/event/person, a cordial or ferment you’ve made yourself from foraged fruit, the ingredients for a cocktail that you remember from a film or a dream, or something that was gifted to you. Alcoholic and non-alcoholic contributions welcomed. All drinks will be considered a gift to share with others, so please make sure they are clearly labelled.

EVENT CREDITS

The Animist Almanac is a core element of Cherry Truluck’s doctoral research with UK Food Systems CDT and the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences. It is part of Seeding the Commons, a programme of work by Custom Food Lab in partnership with the Gaia Foundation and supported by Arts Council England.

POLITICS OF FOOD

This event is part of the public programme of Delfina Foundation’s fifth season of the Politics of Food, in partnership with Gaia Art Foundation and with additional support from a range of individuals and partners.