an event
Last night I was invited to speak at the "Culture Cafe" – an event established by local photographer Michael Harms. This is a series of artist talks accompanied by a meal, attended by people mostly local to the Stadthaus Museum.
Michael asked me to suggest a meal and a theme. In keeping with my recent work, I enquired with the Chef Hans about food that used to be regularly eaten in Berlin, but that isn't now often served. Initially he suggested a tripe dish and schnitzel made from cows udder; however due to health and safety restrictions it was not possible to serve this (apparently a link with BSE) and the raw ingredients in any case were difficult to locate…
He was able to come up with another dish "Panitertes Berliner Schnitzel" and a pudding "Arme Ritter" mit Vanillesauce. The pudding translates as "Poor Knight" and is a delicious eggy bread dipped in vanilla sauce that used to be a "poor mans pudding". It transpired also that he used to cook for the British Army and was very knowledgeable about British food (from the late 1970's I think though his age is hard to guess!) as a result Steak and Kidney Pie was added to the menu!
During the evening I showed images and spoke about projects where I have uncovered 'forgotten archives' of material – I also showed some of my video work where I attempt to pluck and cook a duck, and recent drawings illustrating a previous hunting trip in Northumbria.
I was worried how the audience would react to the work, being somewhat 'elderly' and the work being perhaps (I thought) in their eyes a little too 'contemporary'. However, in the discussions that followed I was very heartened by their engagement with the work and really enjoyed the evening.
In particular, one lady said that all of the things I was talking about (unravelling knitwear; plucking birds and skinning animals) are things that she would regularly do when younger. About my video piece "Ducky" she said, "I imagined you were my daughter and as I watched it I wanted to teach you, to say here, this is how you do it, let me show you".
I had considered attending some game preparation classes in Shropshire when I return to the UK; this process though of 'learning from an elder' could be an interesting development of the work to be remembered and followed up in London (as I am rapidly running out of time here).
Another Gentleman told me he was born in 1927 – he said that as I showed 'museum objects' and looked at the dates on them (in particular a 1930's visitors book that I uncovered during a museum residency) he thought "Oh yes, I was 10 then and I was doing…"
Another younger lady (his daughter) told me a really beautiful story about buying a spinning wheel off e-bay, buying raw wool off a farmer and how she then attempted to learn through books, blood, tears and intuition to clean the grease from the wool and spin it!
I am not sure how long this process took her but by the end, she had a lovely (if slightly itchy and stiff!) pair of gloves from wool she had cleaned, spun and crocheted herself – and that the remaining grease was very effective at keeping the hands dry when making snowballs.
The staff at the Stadthaus made a really colourful table display, I have learnt whilst here that several of the staff who assist with these events are on '1 euro' jobs (a initiative relating to unemployment) and the homely touches provided are by their initiative sometimes borrowed from home. I learnt later in the evening that the Chef Hans no longer worked at the museum, but had returned especially just to cook the meal. Jochen Ulander provided translation services and there was also great technical support (thanks Uwe).
