4000 Varieties of Orange 2010
Raewyn Turner and Brian Harris
Each square had a different flavour and the audience were invited to consume the work.
The focus in 4000 Varieties of orange is on food monocultures and fragrance/flavour biodiversity. We used commercially made sponge cake made with wheat flour. Each piece of cake was individually coloured and flavoured eg apricot, apple, peach, steak, salmon, lemon, mushroom, beer, banana, raspberry, onion, chicken, tea, chocolate, boysenberry, cheese, potato, carrot, orange, roast lamb, brandy, peach, fish…..
We became interested in the power of synthetic flavouring to conjure visual images and in exploring synaesthetic experience of food. We carried out taste tests comparing real food flavours with synthetic flavours, for example a ripe apricot with apricot flavour, steak with steak flavour, apple with apple flavour, etc. The synthetic flavours : 'natural' and 'nature identical' were superb, conveying exact messages, and seem to be more real than the real fresh food flavours. Indeed as Jean Baudrillard states the simulacrum has superseded the real.
New associations are being made and our sense of taste is changing as it adapts to an increasing diversity of synthetic fragrance and flavour food additives. When consumed traces of these novel flavours may be included in the human plume which consists of a layer of warm air which rises into the atmosphere, carrying with it molecules from the skin of human bodies.
The materials that we had originally proposed for the project were the four monocultured ingredients of soy, wheat, rice and corn along with synthetic flavours which immediately conjure visual pictures in the mind’s eye. After weeks of cooking from dawn till dusk in the kitchen, experimenting with delightfully visual pies hand crafted from slabs of corn and wheat flour, and filled with synthetically – flavoured mixtures of seasoned soy meats and rice, we decided to use commercially made wheaten sponge cake that would give a pleasant taste experience so already has a positive hedonic value.
We were originally designing a themed dinner and dialogue for the Eco Sapiens residency participants and friends, intended as a pilot leading to further cultural dinner events, so we started the project making pies. Using a limited pallet of wheat, rice, soy and corn, we started experimenting in Auckland. We wanted to get the flavouring to work and develop pastry recipes to create pie sculptures.
Flavouring the pies was a challenge due to the complexities of combining texture, fragrance, flavour and visual attraction. We sought advice from award-winning chefs on recipes to create tasty pie fillings which we then adapted for the project ( using soy instead of meat.) We researched historic food ingredients and presentation, focusing on the creation of hand raised pies and sprung metal pie moulds.. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, pies were made in very elaborate shapes.
We referred to : Mrs Beetons Everyday cookery 1880/Ivan Day Historic Food
. Our palette was limited: Food staples /monocultures : wheat, rice, soy, maize,
. We use a large variety of food flavours : Flavour/Fragrance diversity : Formula Foods
An example of one of the pies was where we’d used chicken, beef and bacon flavourings to substitute for bird flesh. The filling was mock chicken—a type of soy protein. When the pie was opened we noticed a definite shift from the visual pleasure of the pie to olfacto/gustatory displeasure.
The work emerged from our EcoSapiens SCANZ residency in New Plymouth NZ 2010, and is a continuation of Raewyn's PLUME project with Dr Richard Newcombe
4000 varieties of Orange is exploring the constituents of the human plume.
Thankyou: Formula Foods a professional food technology company based in Christchurch, for their generosity in providing flavours.; Dr. Richard Newcomb, Plant and Food Research, and House of Aroha for the Aprons –designed and printed by Rakai Karaitiana
4000 Varieties of Orange Exhibited in Edible matters, tAd Gallery, Denton , USA 2014
Please download pdf of the tAd exhibition Edible Matters " What's Cooking Under the Microscope?'
Edible Matters
Food, Culture, & Social Process
tAd is pleased to present Edible Matters, a 4-course exhibition which runs from April to July, 2014. This series of exhibitions is a concerted undertaking of 23 local, national, and international artists, who join together to exchange ideas and perspectives on various matters and issues that concern food.
The first show, The Seeds of Interconnectivity opens on April 11, 2014, featuring the works of three artists. Saprina Cheuk is an artist who currently lives and works in San Bernardino, California. Her lucious dessert-like sculptures are whipped, mixed, melted, and coated together to form a narrative on bodily desire, pleasure, and gluttony. Akin to a satire, the works wittingly reflect on the contemporary America’s culinary discourse. A local artist of Denton, Texas, Tesa Morin combines multiple media and recycle materials to create a body of ethical foodscapes. She speaks out from the women’s perspective, and caringly speaks to many contested social and political issues on food provisioning and environment. Presented also in this first show are two animation videos by artist Mikio Saito, who lives and works in Sappora, Japan. The bright colorful images of his child-like drawings are configurated into an organic moving sequence of visuosensory experiences. His fun-loving, imaginative, and humorous approach to food universally delights us with a sense of interconnectivity.
The second show, Political Economy On The Table, opens on May 9. It features the works by 8 international artists: Jessica Fuquay, Stephan Groβ, Adam Jahnke, Jane Lawson, Trevor Mahovsky, Kathleen Reichelt, Jorge Mañes Rubio, and Rhonda Weppler. These artists explore the ineluctable reality that food is grown and produced within the globalizing economy, while the way we consume food can hardly slip through the invisible hand of neoliberal capitalism.
What’s Cooking Under The Microscope? opens on June 6, 2014. The exhibition features the works by Rafael Garrdo, Sanglim Han, Raymonde Jodoin, Marin Leus, Terauchi Mari, Ngoc Minh Thi Nguyen, together with a collaborative installation piece by Raewyn Turner and Brian Harris. The scientific and technological aspect of food is methodically explored, questioned, challenged and presented by these 8 international artists who has brought together different perspectives through the lens of art.
Culturally Brewed Representation and Identity is the fourth and final exhibition in the series. It runs from July 24 to August 23, 2014, bringing together 7 international artists to explore issues and concepts of cultural identity and representation in relation to food. Diaspora, gender, domesticity, racial signification, and international division of labor in the globalized capitalist economy are some of the subject matters that this exhibition seeks to bring forward for a meaningful discussion. The show features the works by Lindsey Allgood, Jessica Fuguery. Thomas Nondh Jansen, Wan Mai Linh Ly, Riitta Oittinen, Jorge Manes Rubio, and Molly Youngblood.
Artists: Lindsey Allgood | Sapira Cheuk | Jessica Fuquay | Rafael Garrdo | Stephen Groβ | Sanglim Han | Adam Jahnke | Thomas Nondh Jansen | Raymonde Jodoin | Jane Lawson | Marin Leus | Wan Mai Linh Ly | Trevor Mahovsky | Terauchi Mari | Tesa Morin | Ngoc Nguyen | Riitta Oittinen | Kathleen Reichelt | Daniel Rothman | Jorge Manes Rubio | Mikio Saito | Raewyn Turner | Rhonda Weppier | Molly Yongblood | Curator: Araya Vivorakij