Performing Flour, 1998

Tables, bread dough, hand-built ovens. Installation dimensions variable.

In a week-long performative intervention, an artists' studio in Amsterdam (Netherlands) was transformed into a dynamic social collective centered around the multifaceted subject of bread. This artistic endeavor was not merely an exploration of bread as a culinary staple but a nuanced examination of its symbolic, historical, and social dimensions. The performance was conceptually anchored in a narrative text that delved into the rationing of bread in World War II labor camps, thereby situating bread-making within a broader socio-political and historical context.

The studio space became a locus for dialogical engagement, inviting participants to partake in discussions that transcended the mere act of bread-making to encompass broader themes of scarcity, sustenance, and survival. In doing so, the performance challenged conventional boundaries between domesticity and art-making, elevating bread-making from a mundane domestic chore to a form of artistic and social inquiry. This recontextualization of domesticity, particularly in the form of bread-making, is a compelling example of how everyday practices can be imbued with artistic significance, thereby blurring the lines between art and life. The performance provided a platform for interrogating the complex relationships between food, labor, and identity. By linking bread-making to the historical narrative of rationing in World War II labor camps, the project invited participants to reflect on how basic sustenance can become a tool for oppression and resistance. It also prompted considerations of how such everyday acts are deeply entangled with broader social and political structures. This week-long performance served as an intricate artistic exploration into the manifold dimensions of bread as both a physical object and a symbolic entity.