Arts Catalyst announces new publication Talking Dirty: Tongue First! Recipes from the Mouth of the Thames

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1 74-76 Cromer Street London WC1H 8DR +44 (0) PRESS RELEASE Wed 17 August 2016 Talking Dirty: Tongue First! Recipes from the Mouth of the Thames (book cover). Images from inside the book, Arts Catalyst 2016 *Look inside the book in Notes to Editors Arts Catalyst announces new publication Talking Dirty: Tongue First! Recipes from the Mouth of the Thames Now available to buy from Cornerhouse Publications: Price 15 Talking Dirty: Tongue First! Recipes from the Mouth of the Thames is an ecopolitical recipe book by artist Fran Gallardo and Claudia Lastra, commissioned by Arts Catalyst. The recipes were researched, tested and compiled by Gallardo in collaboration with people on the Essex coast of the Thames Estuary. Through a tongue first approach, the book explores the tastes, ingredients, changing ecology, health, culture and geopolitics of estuary and global food production. Using the tongue as an investigatory tool to explore this landscape, the book draws a upon our history and contemporary issues of our

2 consumption and the industries that produce our food, focusing on the interconnected and global issues of climate change, modern day slavery, pollutants and invasive species. The book contains instructions for sourcing ingredients along the Thames Estuary, testing them for pollutants and cooking with them alongside experimenting with new forms of extraction of edibles from human and other biological substances to create meals which are breakdown and reimagine the ingredients complexities. Recipes include Grey Mullet and Hair Soy Sauce, Inhaling Fogs and Airs of the Thames Estuary, Vertical Commons Salad (including arsenic) with Blackberry Vinegar, Slave Shrimp, Mud Cola and The Invasive Flood (Semi-Invasive Species Soup). Through introducing people to ingredients sourced from the Thames in open air public cooking and tasting workshops in Leigh-on-Sea, the book s authors engaged with local people about environmental and industrial changes taking place in the estuary, and their social impact. Informing the research for the publication was a series of workshops, led by artist-technologist Andy Freeman, the citizen science workshops investigated traces of waste disposal on the unnatural nature reserve of Two Tree Island, Leigh-on-Sea, with Dr Mark Scrimshaw, Reader in Environmental Chemistry at Brunel University and Marc Outen (Reserves Manager, Essex Wildlife Trust). These citizen science workshops involved the use of digital technologies to investigate the legacy of generations of industrial use and misuse in the estuary landscape, and reflect more broadly on the interactions between industrialisation, farming and local effects of global climate change, and their impact on human health and wildlife habitats. Talking Dirty is part of Wrecked on The Intertidal Zone, an art and citizen science project to uncover and highlight local knowledge about the changing ecology, society and industry of the Thames Estuary. Led by artists YoHa, Critical Art Ensemble, Andy Freeman and Fran Gallardo, and curated by Arts Catalyst. The recipe book, research and programme of events are supported by Arts Council England and the Wellcome Trust. Details Talking Dirty: Tongue First! Recipes from the Mouth of the Thames ISBN Authors Fran Gallardo and Claudia Lastra Edited by Claudia Lastra Published by Arts Catalyst, August 2016 Designed by Abake & Sandra Junker Colour & monochrome, 55 pages, hardback Price 15 Purchase via Cornerhouse Publications: ends.

3 Interviews, images and further information available on request. Contact details: Jessica Wallis, Communications Officer E: T: +44 (0) Claudia Lastra, Programme Manager E: T: +44 (0) Facebook /TheArtsCatalyst Notes to Editors: 1) Arts Catalyst commissions artists who critically and experimentally engage with science and technology. It is one of the UK s most distinctive arts organisations, distinguished by ambitious art commissions and its unique take on artscience practice. The organisation is funded by Arts Council England as part of its National Portfolio. Over 21 years, it has commissioned more than 125 UK and international artists projects, often at pivotal moments in artists careers, including major projects by Tomas Saraceno, Aleksandra Mir, Agnes Meyer-Brandis, Carey Young, Jan Fabre and the Otolith Group. Arts Catalyst works with artists and scientists to create artworks and generate new ideas exploring science and its role in society and culture: from the nature of air to environmental change, interspecies communication to the future of the moon. It aims to give audiences distinctive, thought-provoking experiences and to play a leading role in the dialogue around interdisciplinary artistic practice. The organisation collaborates with world-class galleries, museums, universities, arts organisations, science institutions and research centres. 2) Fran Gallardo is a critical thinker whose background includes studies in design, biochemistry and space systems engineering. Within the umbrella of critical practices, Fran's research explores environmentally embedded violence, collated in processes of environmentality, geo-power and liquid-life. He is currently developing forms of tongue-led inquiry in order to reintroduce the material intractability of global trade, the diminishing virtual negantropism of maritime finalisation, immiserate remote labour-power, alluring myths of ecological cosmopolitanism and other heterotopias flowing through the Thames Estuary. 3) Claudia Lastra has a background in Fine Art and an MA in Material and Visual Culture in Anthropology at UCL. At Arts Catalyst she is the Programme Manager, producing and co-curating exhibitions, public events, writer and editor of publications. Currently she is working on participatory programmes for Arts Catalyst and researching ecological and industrial sites in the UK. 3) Wrecked on the Intertidal Zone was a series of investigations into the Thames Estuary led by YoHa and Arts Catalyst that ran from 2013 to Wrecked aimed to bring together a network of local people with artists and technologists to explore how local situated knowledge of the Thames Estuary can be combined with artistic investigations and citizen science techniques to explore and respond to a changing contested Estuary. It comprised of two projects that ran simultaneously: Graveyard of Lost Species and Talking Dirty: Tongue First! Talking Dirty: Tongue First! was a series of public events involving local foods, their source, preparation and consumption, leading to a recipe book produced in collaboration with the situated knowledge of South Essex people. Look inside the book:

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