Portal Tables by The Decorators and Stanley Picker Gallery
Partner Programme
18 — 19, 22 — 26 Sept 2021
Digital, Multi-Disciplinary Design
Victoria and Albert Museum
Cromwell Road
London
SW7 2RL
This project reflects on the paradoxical way in which the pandemic has both vilified microbes and prompted a renewed interest in homemade practices of nurturing microbial life. Taking the idea of commensality and extending it beyond the human, Portal Tables considers how microbial bodies participate in such encounters.
Created amidst a pandemic and climate crisis, this project reflects on the paradoxical way in which the pandemic has both vilified microbes and prompted a renewed interest in homemade practices of nurturing microbial life. On display is a video-essay and Sofa-Bread – part of a line of furniture that explores domestic interspecies intimacy in food-making. Sofa-Bread is designed to provide moments of conviviality across humans and bacteria during the fermentation process involved in making bread. Food fermentation gained a momentum in the past year of social isolation, with people sharing home-made recipes through social media. The hormonal joy produced by bacterial communities in the human gut serves as a substitute for the social joy of in-real-life human communities. Meanwhile, a growing area of research has been exploring bacteria as a potential resource for plastic recycling, opening up ethical questions regarding the use of microbial life as a solution for human pollution.
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