Politics of Food Programme, Delfina Foundation, London, 2022

A performative feast and oat sowing ritual under November’s Dark Moon,

ABOUT

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

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

This evening gathering commenced 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 were 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 was followed by a feast celebrating oats, created in collaboration with chef Grace Gibbons (Spring, Maremma, Kitchen W8, Jolene).

“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)

POLITICS OF FOOD

This event was 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. Cherry Truluck was a UK associate of the programme in 2022.