Hello! After a short break we are back with the fortified gazette this new year. We’ve got some great people lined up to write for the us over the coming months, starting this week with dispatches from Sean Roy Parker.
Sean Roy Parker is a visual artist, fermentation enthusiast and community gardener based in Derbyshire, England. Currently he is obsessed with Korean Natural Farming, fixing old clothes and dehydrating everything to make his own seasonings. Last year he undertook commissioned projects at Kreenholm Plants (Narva, Estonia), Primary (Nottingham, UK), Gathenhielmska Huset (Gothenburg, Sweden) and Phytology (London, UK). He also had writing published by Theatrum Mundi (UK), Kunstverein Lüneburg (Germany) and Hot Potato (Ireland).
He writes on fermentalhealth.substack.com and posts as @fermental_health on instagram.
Find a preamble from Roy and his first dispatch below.
Thanks! Kate + Sinae
Aligning Appetites: food diary from an artist community
For almost two years, I have been living in an ex-Steiner school near Ilkeston, Derbyshire, with a rotating group of artists, musicians, dancers, cooks and curators, working out how to (temporarily) breathe new life into a dilapidated building and live in harmony with each other and the deep ecology. Originally called DARP (Derbyshire Artist Residency Programme) the project began in December 2020 as a place for short artist residencies, and has organically evolved into Michael’s House, a space for experimental co-living, where all members co-organise the upkeep, visitors and happenings non-hierarchically and on the basis of consent. Everything is opt-in except the weekly group meeting and cleaning tasks, which provide a small amount of structure in an otherwise free-flowing project that aims to meet the needs of all members and make room to bask in the abundance of time, room, materials, nature and love.
Although we all have personal cupboards and fridge spaces in our large kitchen, as well as conflicting diaries and dietary needs, there are some elements baked into the project that facilitate the shared purchasing, cooking and eating of food. I believe that organising and socialising around food can be healing for people who have been indoctrinated with individualist culture (especially in the city), and part of my artistic practice has been creating functional frameworks that support this alimentary co-nourishment. For example, I built a communal pantry that houses wholefoods and bulk basics, as well as surplus fresh fruit and vegetables donated by the local organic farm and other ‘waste’ ingredients collected from bins or community food-saving apps. This makes it far easier to organise group meals – for celebrations, particular events, or just for the hell of it – and also means that if anyone is ill or broke, there is always something available.
Monday 9 Jan
We have a meeting at 9am so I get down early to wash up the things I forgot about last night, grab an apple and make an earl grey. Will puts a big pot of coffee on so I have a large espresso too, and we sit down for our meeting, the first of the year. We are welcoming some old faces back and planning the arrival of some fresh ones, as well as splitting up jobs that will help get the place back to looking beautiful after the chaotic festive period. As soon as the meeting is done, I’m up to put a bit of the drying up away and head to the studio with my laptop and notebook to work on some applications and this journal.
After a while I take a quick screen break to check my active ferments:
Lactofermented butterbeans – my favourite snack
Vegan napa cabbage kimchi – I taught Will from scratch just before xmas
Parsnip and chickpea miso – made during a paid workshop in November
Lactofermented plums – gathered from the garden in September
Liquid calcium extract – soaking toasted eggshells in apple cider vinegar to make a component for a natural liquid fertiliser project I’m working on
I also received a gift of 2kg of honey collected from bees at the community garden. The beekeeper donated it as it’s not clear enough to sell and I let him practise saxophone in the school hall. I’m planning some garlic ferments, marinades and wild sodas as soon as the dandelions appear.
Just before lunch I spot a large bird of prey in the playground, swooping between the trees and watched it for a while. I was told recently that the country park nearby has lots of rare birds, this reminds me I need to always take my binoculars out. I head to the kitchen and eat half a veggie sausage that Sonia gives me as a snack, then construct a cheese and kimchi toastie, buttering the outside of the bread just after defrosting it in the toaster. I take it with some kale from the community garden and green beans from the food waste app, steamed, and a cup of beetroot skin and mint tea. The kimchi is maximalist: julienne carrots and spring onions for crunch, a paste made from miso, pickle juice, maple syrup, soy sauce, sesame oil and szechuan pepper, with blitzed onions, apples, ginger, garlic and the customary gochugaru rice porridge. It packs such a punch I can hear Solomon murmuring about it down the hallway, and imagine him as a cartoon character following a visible perfume trail.
On my way to the kettle I snaffle a handful of unclaimed yoghurt-coated cranberries that have been sitting on the kitchen hatch for a few days.
My tummy is growling after badminton and swimming at the sports centre with Sonia, so we stop at the corner shop on the cycle home to pick up a few bits: new potatoes, leeks, apple juice, a reduced price brie. She just needs the potatoes for dinner, and while they’re boiling whole she finely dices gherkins, red onion, garlic and spring onion tops. I raid my fridge for wild elderberry capers and a few kale leaves, then blanche the leaves with some green beans and tenderstem broccoli in the leftover potato water. I make a pot of herbal tea from my stash – rose, mallow, yarrow to restore heart and body. Sonia cuts the spuds into thick slices and adds them to a metal bowl with two tiny cans of fancy tuna, vegan mayo, the diced ingredients and cooked green beans, a spoonful of my capers and some flaky salt. I twist pepper into the bowl then zest a lemon and mince three garlic cloves at my own station. On a camping plate I drop the greens and add the zest and garlic, a large glug of olive oil with bits of basil floating in it and flaky salt. As Sonia finishes her potato salad with lemon juice and sets the table with a candle, I toast two slices of soda bread and top up the teapot with hot water.
After digesting and washing up, I eat the rest of the cranberries no-one even knew existed, and add the zested lemon husk to my now-diluted tea, smiling at the promise of colds for lunch tomorrow.