The titles of her work sum up what was involved in her projects (such as Field kitchen because she made a kitchen that could be used in a field).
Field Kitchen
For one of her projects she created a Field Kitchen, which was a bespoke bicycle trailer that holds the necessary equipment to cook edible plants that she finds on expeditions in urban wilds. She attempts self-sufficiency in her mobile kitchen by using rocket stoves powered by wood and waste to cook the foraged food.
The field kitchen makes physical and social interventions into public spaces, offering and invitation for people to smell and taste their botanical surroundings. The project looks and examines what we can find in our immediate surroundings for sustenance, pleasure and well being and raising questions about our relationship with plants and food, and our reliance on imported goods, and lost fields of knowledge.
Throughout the project, Rebecca Beinart has collaborated with specialists on wild food, fungi, herbal medicine, folklore, pickling and preserving. In a series of events, Field Kitchen will conduct experiments in different locations, to discover their potential for sustenance.
Sal Sapit Omnia
Beinart went to Sal Sapit Omnia and created a salt wagon from wood, bicycle wheels, glass jars and an umbrella. The wagon was 1m x 1m x 3m in size.
"The salt wagon is a tool for playfully investigating the naturally occurring Salt Pans around Darling, South Africa. The wagon is designed to conduct experiments in harvesting and preservation. Salt is a powerful preservative, both physically and metaphorically – 'it’s ability to protect against decay, as well as to sustain life, has given salt a broad metaphorical importance – we associate it with longevity and permanence'. (Salt, Mark Kurlansky, 2002) The form of the salt wagon is also a reference to the Smous wagons of early Jewish migrants to South Africa, who were travelling pedlars, traversing remote rural areas to sell goods to farmers."
Exponential Growth
Exponential Growth is a project that Rebecca has done for the Radar Arts Programme at Loughborough University. The project has created and exchange network to share a locally found yeast culture, in an experiment to see whether Loughborough's 'Culture' can colonise the world, and what the limits are to growth.
There are many varieties of wild yeast present in our environment that have been used for centuries to leaven bread and ferment beer. in this form, they are referred to as 'Star Cultures'.
Rebecca Beinart worked with scientists, bakers and home-brew enthusiasts to experiment with capturing and growing these cultures, and developing them into starter kits, which were distributed to local residents and visitors to take care of, use for food production, grow, divide and pass on.
The project created a network through which these loughborough-born cultures have been spread, regionally, nationally and globally. The systems of transport and exchange that help the culture to spread have been tracked on the project website (www.exponentialgrowth.org).
Exponential Growth brings the question about our value judgments about locality, global economics, growth and sustainability. It is a phrase often used with disgust by environmentalists, and with glee by economists.
Is continuous growth possible and desirable, or do all systems find their limits?
I quite like the ideas behing Rebecca's work because I think it is quite interesting to hear about the stories involved in the ideas. She has put a lot of thought and planning into her work and projects. I quite like the Exponential Growth project because I like the idea of spreading the yeast culture between lots of people all over the country and seeing how far it travels ad spreads.
I like what she has done but I don't really see it as an art, although this is how she classes it. I think everyone has a different opinion of what art is to them. I think that to call something art, you should be able to display or exhibit it in some way (Such as pieces of art, photographs, videos, dance, singing, architecture. They can all be shown and exhibited in some way.)
