Presence of Food
Presence of Food has evolved from a longterm devotional practice with food and ritual. Through durational happenings, installations and multimedia artworks these food rituals enliven feeling-thinking-being as we experience ourselves as part of the animate Earth. Making visible the sacred and transformative potential of food as a convivial praxis creates the conditions for practising a sympoiethics of care in the everyday.
The Arts Council grant offers Miche the opportunity to open up the taste, touch, smell and visual power of food with the aural and connect to the sacred and spiritual through the material of sound and the vibration of matter. Audiences can immerse and connect with themselves and each other on another frequency to discover new communing experiences between the intimate and the expansive.
Miche’s practice is with a universal language, energy and matter. Her practice creates new connections at a time when our very connection with ourselves, our food and our environment is being fought and challenged. The power of the individual as a vibrant node within our ecosystem sits at the heart of her work. Never was a time more urgent to explore our full potential with food, land, each other and nature.
Andy Robinson, Head of Strategy Future City
GastroSonic Improvisations
In November 2022 Miche received Arts Council of England funding to continue developing her creative practice with Presence of Food. This research amplifies her ritual praxis with food through collaborations with multi-instrumentalist musicians Anna Mudeka and Nathaniel Mann.
The culinary choreographies of vessels, artefacts, food preparation and cooking become fields of exploration with sound recording, ritual process combined with visual documentation to evoke the sacred and transformative potential of food.
11th December 2022
Fermenting with the Ancestors
GastroSonic improvisations in Studio Fabre Hardy KitchenStudio with Miche and Anna Mudeka were in an honouring of the ancestors and the sacred of food and music. Together, we created invocations with voice, musical instruments, culinary rhythms and edible compositions which nurture bodymind, soul and Earth-kinship.
14-15th January 2023
Soil and Soul of Mbira and Sacred Mayonnaise
Feeding the soul with song and food and music with Anna Mudeka in the presence of the ancestors. Singing, playing, making and sharing gratitude for an abundant vision of wholesome life on a planet in balance.
Anna Mudeka
What draws you to this collaborative project?
“Both food and music drew me to the project, reminding me of Zimbabwe gatherings where food, music and song come together. Food and music are so crucial to our lifebeing, and as a musician I am excited to be exploring this relationship at a deeper level in a collaboration with Miche and her love for food, the colours, the flavours. GastroSonic brings me to another way of thinking of how to make my performances more of an experience. It also enables me to experiment and progress as a multi-instrumentalist artist, as well as to grow my appreciation of food and what the land gives us.”
19th January 2023
Deep Listening and my Cooking Body
With Nathaniel Mann, my GastroSonic improvisations in Studio Fabre Hardy KitchenStudio unfolded sequences of sound cameos to cultivate deep listening. We recorded the vibrational chamber of a kitchen with all its resonating qualities - an egg, knives, a washing up bowl, a lemon pared and squeezed, cabbage chopping. Working with finger bells to enliven the bodily rhythms and gestures of my cooking body in a syncopation with utensils, culinary processes, and sizzling pans. Later, voice work to add vocal texture and enhance the culinary and artistic expression of the cooking body.
Nathaniel Mann
What inspired you to work with me on this collaborative project, Presence of Food?
“Your environment … the way you live … the holistic nature of your combined practice creates space, hospitality in which I become immersed and learn from … a beautiful honour which activates me … being with you draws together my flow state of knowledge and experience. You infect me with belief … the state you create for me to exist within every single process … the food we eat, how we eat it … where the onion skin falls, how water is poured … is about this essence, the sacredness of my relationship to life which inspires my ability to lucidly express myself.”
Gratitude to the Arts Council England and the creative production and technical team.
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Bettina Linstrum
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John Mercer
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Lewis Wickwar
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Xander Cansell
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David Littler