DAY 87: Museum of Edible Earth
By Masha Ru, Eindhoven, the Netherlands, 25 October 2017
The Day of Learning by Museum of Edible Earth gathered a full house of audience. The presentation was given in a particularly visual and intuitive way, at the same time engaging memories, senses of taste, sight, touch, and smell. The participants who did not wish to taste the soil samples were offered to interact with the earth in a way they felt like. Especially for this event, a map was designed and distributed to the participants of the workshop. The map was augmented with the pictures of the soil samples which were present and available for tasting at the workshop, and blank spaces beneath each picture for the participants to write down their feedback or thoughts.
At the beginning of the presentation, each participant was asked to introduce oneself and tell the other what earth means to them. The thoughts and associations differed from dirt and bacteria to the source of life, from farming lands and something to care of to death and destruction, from the childhood memories to the earth as the planet and our home. The tasting started with the participants choosing the three samples to taste together so that there is feedback for at least three same samples, and afterwards the participants were free to choose the earth samples they wished to taste or interact with. We gave ample information on each sample: where it comes from, what are the properties, how is it used, what is its meaning the culture where it’s used, and provided the videos and photos from field trips or the visual material and data discovered during the research phase of the Museum of Edible Earth. The participants noted down their associations and feelings about the samples they tasted. At the end of the presentation, the maps could be taken by the participants. In total there were 18 samples of soil from 17 different countries.
Participants were informed that everyone eats soil involuntarily, whether it is through breathing, vegetables or by hands. The practice of eating soil (known as geophagy) was recorded in 85% of the countries in the world. Though food authorities might not agree with it being food. That is why participants were informed that eating earth is on their own risk.
The starting phase of Museum of Edible Earth is supported by Creative Industries Fund NL.
Masha worked with Age of Wonderland in 2015 within the project ‘Claynialism’ in collaboration with Arie Syarifuddin from Jatiwangi art Factory (ID) and Atelier NL (NL). This previous collaboration was focus on eating clay, and cooking it. During the Dutch Design Week 2015, an exhibition was presented with edible clay samples, clay cookies, edible ceramics and chemical analysis. During the exhibition, a cooking and eating participatory session took place in collaboration with Dina Roussou.
