[-empyre-] Welcome to Week 2: Kathy High and Lindsay Kelley

[Renate Terese Ferro]

Dear Kathy and Lindsay, 
I am at College Art Association with what is incredibly spotty wifi but I’m going to make this rather short response in hopes that you both write back today.  Yes, friendship and networking, I agree that the lab/kitchen/site of production, process and thinking about all things biological/art/politics as Kathy reminds url is at the heart of inspiration and activism.  The limited but rich history I referred to in my initial introductions makes me realize how important -empyre- is in making connections across the globe and for keeping an archive of those interactions.   Please Kathy and Lindsay include more links to your work and your writings so that they will be a part of our archive. What a rich resource for all of us.  

Can I ask you both in light of the Trumpian environment that we find the world in (how can one man affect the balance of global security and peace, the environment, the financial systems, and general trust of the world in just a few weeks?) to comment about irony and humor.  We introduced this thread just a few days before with Byron. I was curious what you both throught about how these tactics intersected with your own work and how it is received.  So much to talk about here I am thrilled but will will pick up when I return in the afternoon.  

Thanks for starting the week out with so much to think about. 
Will check back in a few hours.  Renate


On 2/15/17, 1:18 AM, "empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of Lindsay Kelley" <empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of l.kelley at unsw.edu.au> wrote:

>----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>Dear Renate,
>
>Thank you for inviting me to this discussion. 
>
>Your introduction, your reflections on Beatriz da Costa's work, and my pairing with Kathy all remind me of Donna Haraway's remark that "interdisciplinary work requires great friendships" (Haraway & Goodeve 2000:126). Katie King also elaborates on "networks of friendship" and the ways in which friendships facilitate our thinking and making. I'm absolutely with Donna and Katie on this point--without friendship, there would be far fewer collaborations across worlds and disciplines. Friendship with Kathy, Donna, Katie, and Beatriz--all of this really matters. 
>
>I am in Sydney at the moment, working on a new project about cookies/biscuits/wheat and the nutritional landscape of colonial violence. A bunch of things keep me up at night, but special mention would go to headlines like "Milk is the new, creamy symbol of white racial purity in Donald Trump's America" (https://mic.com/articles/168188/milk-nazis-white-supremacists-creamy-pseudo-science-trump-shia-labeouf)--containing this gem about lactose tolerance: "Some white supremacists think white ethnic identity has a geographic, historical correlation with the body's tolerance for milk." I think a lot about how trouble with tolerance in the way that Isabel Stengers articulates it may or may not intersect with digestive tolerances, and if anticolonial ingestions and indigestions might produce a new kind of food politics.
>
>Before my biscuit obsession, I wrote a book called Bioart Kitchen that argues for an expansive, even wacky history of bioart. I mostly write, but I make stuff too, which often takes the form of tasting events. I did one about humanitarian aid survival foods, one about tube feeding, and a few about Anzac biscuits, asking what national identity tastes like. I'm hoping to do something with fry bread in 2018. 
>
>I'm really excited to be paired up with Kathy! We had a fun time at an event Astrida Neimanis organized last year called "Hacking the Anthropocene," where she exhibited her "Waste Matters" work at a satellite exhibition with Perdita Phillips that we privately dubbed "Poo Circus." I had a cocktail on hand called "Faecal Attraction": kahlua, cold brew coffee, Benefiber, corn kernels, and chocolate ice cream floaters. 
>
>Seems like a good note to end on.
>
>More anon,
>
>Lindsay
>
>------------
>Lindsay Kelley
>Lecturer
> 
>UNSW Art & Design
>UNSW Sydney 
> 
>Paddington Campus
>Cnr Oxford St & Greens Rd,  
>Paddington, NSW 2021 
>Australia 
>E:  l.kelley at unsw.edu.au
> 
>Bioart Kitchen http://goo.gl/SJRdFn 
>@bioartkitchen
>@extremebaking 
> 
>CRICOS PROVIDER CODE 00098G
> 
>I pay my respects and acknowledgments to all Traditional Custodians on whose land I live, work and travel through.
> 
> 
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>empyre forum
>empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>http://empyre.library.cornell.edu