What meanings do you associate with ordinary foods, and how do these meanings permeate into wider cultural discourses? Food is meaning-laden and culturally driven, so what can our stories about food tell us about ourselves? Beginning with loaves of bread as artistic material, I will lead a one-and-a-half-hour workshop which will focus on participants’ cultural and familial memories of bread.

I will ask participants about their memories of bread: What did it look like and smell like? Where did they eat it? Who made it? Who served it? How did they eat it? Were there any family rituals that went with bread eating? Were there any faith rituals with bread eating? I will invite participants to use the first thing that comes to mind from these questions while they survey additional creation materials, so they can decide on what and how they will make. As we create in small groups, I will invite participants to share the stories that emerge, as they are comfortable. Once complete, participants will share their creations, and we will consider what the material reveals about these associations, the material itself, and participants’ memories.

We will conclude with a short discussion about bringing community-as-testimony into research.

This workshop represents some of the work of my PhD thesis, which is to find creative ways to communicate the themes of food theology. I take up community-based research creation (CBRC), a framework which adopts and extends the logic and ethics of oral history “into the realm of visual creation, welcoming community members to create artworks depicting their experiences, memories, and present understandings.” CBRC recognizes participants as experts over their own lives, which they draw on through making and dialogue. A benefit of creating with actual bread is that the memory is stimulated through senses like scent, sight, and texture.

Please note that the number of participants is limited to fifteen. Pre-registration is required.

Cooking with COHDS: Memories of Bread With Karla Reinhardt Falk

Cooking with COHDS: Memories of Bread With Karla Reinhardt Falk

Event Info

Hosted By:

Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling

Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling

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