This week we’ve got Pierce Eldridge sharing with us!
Really looking forward hearing from them,
x Kate + Sinae
Hi, I’m Pierce (they/them) a curator living in London.
My practice is deeply rooted in an entangled existence with ecological systems and the knowledges they hold, produce, and share.
You can find me at:
how to furrow through small spaces:
and insta.
5:30am
Over the next few days I will be sharing what I’m eating and hope to not romanticise too much what I’m consuming, nor claim that this is a more genuine way to nourish yourself. My entries — to me — happen to be rather unspectacular.
If you could witness how I am foraging ingredients and making with friends, you would be privy to rambling conversations while dicing, seasoning, and eating along the way; in a kitchen, on a patch of grass, or on a side of a lido with pre-packed utensils.
I hope, at least, to share that there is an inconsequential quality to how I am following my palette and body’s desires; and what is accomplished from this is a sort of simple pleasure to be with food and to share.
***
5:39am
I’m tussling in the bed this-morning when I remember I have to straighten myself out for the day. I’m not motivated to go to my own graduation. The hoards of people with families makes me homesick for a quiet celebration with mine by a beach in Australia.
I’ve the image of my mother preparing sashimi with a freshly squeezed lime and chilli dressing. A spicy but delicious appetiser before soft crab linguini with parmesan.. the last meal we shared together since my travelling.
I can tell it’s going to be a slower day, missing those I love and spending my time strategically tracing as much ~important~ information as I can to share with them via FaceTime in a couple of days.
It’s tough to peel myself from my sheets, so I afford myself a little more time to lay in and send a message to my family, tickle the endless scroll feature with a subtle two strokes before closing Instagram, to flick through a few pages of the book I’m currently reading ~ diary of a film ~ which is giving me: post-production actors from call me by your name have just wrapped filming and are now falling in love.
I imagine Armie & Timmy in love.
I imagine I’m the swimming briefs begin squished and stuffed into someones nostrils. As trunks, I’d smell like wild flowers and pre-cum; orange lily, greenweed, solomon’s seal.
Mmm.
I throw the book on the floor beside me, letting out an ~ahhhhhhhh~ of relief mixed with yearning, and push my body into a contorted stretch across the bed. As I rise, I catch my curly mane in the mirror’s reflection and scoff, which I instantly feel guilty about and amend quickly with an ~oh so sweet~ affirmation along the lines of ‘you’re feral in the best way’, then make my way to the kettle.
I’ve not afforded myself the luxury of purchasing a coffee grinder so I drink a very poor quality instant coffee which *sparks* some sort of gear into motion, enough to raise my awareness into a preparatory function on imagining the proceeding days events.
~meeting friends
~getting the ceremony gown
~sitting
~waiting
~accepting my certificate
~celebrations!
(woohoo)
I have a small glass of fresh OJ from a local organics on Chatsworth while I wait for the kettle to boil and wonder to myself if it’s appropriate to have a soup for breakfast with coffee; made fresh recently by a gentle critter, delivered to me on my final COVID days sickness. Cabbage, cream, potatoes, carrots. It’s delicious.
I decide rather to have a few dollops of yogurt with some granola, oat flakes, almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, walnuts, rapeseed oil, sunflower seeds, roasted flaxseeds, poppy seeds, pumpkin seeks, and coconut with a few fresh strawberries grown in the soils of my garden ~ that I tend to eat off the top as I nurse my coffee.
At this point, I’m very happy to return to my room. Pleasantly stirring.
***
7:46am
It takes me approximately 47 minutes to eat my yogurt, and during that time I’m writing here, listening to an eclectic symphony of Omar Apollo, Angus & Julia Stone, and Cigarette’s After Sex. These warriors carry me through to RCA and the Royal Albert Hall. I take a banana for the journey.
***
2:13pm
We find a bit of Hyde Park that feels like woodland to sit and ~mange~ on a little picnic box supplied by the college following convocation celebrations. As I’m still on my way out of sickness, the glass of wine I suckled on moments ago makes me a little dizzy.. it doesn’t take much. I also excitedly, and experimentally, am hoping some sense of full tastebud tantalisation has returned. An extremely disheartening and frustrating thing to lose over the last week, as if everything I had attempted to eat was cardboard that produced an odour so putrid I’d gag, get dizzy, and have to quickly hightail it to my bed for fear of vomiting.
With a thud we navigate toward a set of fallen branches to sprawl our grabbings. Cupcakes, brownies, chia salads, rice paper rolls, and (not pictured because already eaten ~oops) some vegan falafel ball things with hummus.
I’m moderately satisfied. I experience the full bittersweet ~tart~ pomegranate bursting on my palette, the hummus I take with falafel is oily and some bites are full of garlic, and the sweet chilli sauce I place on the rice paper roll trickles over the avocado and cabbage with a flavourful warning. I still, regardless of the sauce ratio killing all nutritional value of the greens, take a huge bite and cough through the spice.
After eating, I sigh. Ripping apart a brownie whilst thinking about the student union’s final address to the college. I feel thankful for an honest and tough speech delivered by Anna Müller and Yon Yi Sohn who highlighted the challenges of the blended learning structure over the last two years.
I wonder, are we the covid graduates?
The pandemic-tandem-riders?
Will we be remembered for being resilient, porous, and malleable?
Will we be remembered for producing/creating work under stringent pressure in an online environment, across multiple timezones, whilst having to rally at the foundations of the institution for more inclusive student care/studio space/exhibition outcomes?
I was told I wasn’t able to graduate from Australia, so here I am. It was a visa issue. I found out later the college is given a surplus of money for international student retention.
My brain swirls with dollar signs.
[̲̅$̲̅(̲̅ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°̲̅ )̲̅$̲̅]
We didn’t get our certificates today, where are they?
I’m thankful for the phrase spoken today, ‘if anything, what RCA hadn’t expected to teach us during these two years was how to become activists.’
***
5:16pm
I drink a coffee now and in a moment I’ll have some jam on toast, strawberry and lemon verbena freshly made from the E5 Bakery by London Fields.
I’ll most likely curl up in a moment; read, yearn and fall asleep early. Dreaming of someone scrunching me to their nose as if I were rosemary. Or swimming briefs.