FOOD: Bigger than the Plate

Supernatural, by Uli Westphal, highlights packaging images that idealise ideas about food production.

The V&A has gone back to its roots – literally – with this latest exhibition. The museum is built on the site of the Brompton Park Nursery, founded in 1689 and once an important growing centre for fruit trees. Today, the future of our food, and our planet, is a matter of concern for everyone and the display takes a witty and sometimes provocative look at production ideas and alternative food futures.

The opening section, Compost, aims to change our perception of waste. One of the first things you see is Loowatt’s waterless flush toilet that collects excrement to be converted into fertilizer or to generate energy. Nearby, the problem of what to do with used coffee grounds is addressed by GroCycle’s Urban Mushroom Farm installation, which uses them to grow edible Oyster mushrooms, which will be harvested and go to the V&A’s Benugo cafe, to be used in selected dishes.

Farming explores how new technologies might change the way we grow and farm the plants and animals we eat. One idea is this Bicitractor L'Aggrozouk, designed for small-scale farming and which, being pedal-powered, has minimal impact on the environment.

Trading looks at the buying, selling and transporting of food. It questions the images sometimes used to make food look desirable (top) and asks visitors to think about their last meal. How did the food get from field to plate? A highlight here is the bar provided by Company Drinks, a community enterprise in east London that, inspired by the local tradition of hop picking, brings people together to pick, process and produce drinks. More than 36,000 people have so far been involved in the enterprise. The cordial I tried was a refreshing infusion of kale, rosemary, lavender, lemon balm, sugar and water, served in a paper cup.

The final section, Eating, is understandably the largest, exploring how a meal connects us culturally, socially and politically. It looks at the role of the table, the challenges we face in feeding the world, and the scientific projects, ingredients and recipes that push the boundaries of ingenuity in cooking. You can visit the pop-up food bar provided by the Centre for Genomic Gastronomy's LOCI Food Lab that makes tiny canapés to order once visitors choose three of their food priorities from a 15-strong list. My choice of a “delicious, affordable and protein-rich” canapé contained Essex chia seeds, British yellow peas and quinoa, mould microprotein and dried and powdered anchovy. The end result, below, certainly tickled the tastebuds.

The headline-grabbing feature in this section is the display of cheeses created from microbes harvested from the bodies of celebrities. You can't taste these – and quite honestly, I wouldn’t rush to try a Comté cheese created with the help of samples from Heston Blumenthal’s nostrils and pubic hair – but maybe in the future, we’ll be grateful for such delicacies. Anyhow, top marks to the V&A for addressing issues that affect us all with such engaging and thought-provoking installations. The show’s co-curators, Catherine Flood and May Rosenthal Sloan, point out that food is one of the most powerful tools through which we shape the world we live in. They say that now is a crucial moment to ask not just what will we be eating tomorrow, but what kind of food future do we want?
FOOD: Bigger than the Plate is at the V&A Museum in South Kensington until October 20, 2019. Tickets £17, concessions available.
https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/food-bigger-than-the-plate

Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition

Kubrick on set of 2001: A Space Odyssey © Warner Bros Entertainment Inc

It’s 20 years since the death of Stanley Kubrick, one of the greatest filmmakers of the 20^th century and London’s Design Museum is celebrating his achievements with a major exhibition that explores his unique command of the whole creative design process of film-making, from story teller to director and editor.

Kubrick and Jack Nicholson on set of The Shining ©Warner Bros Entertainment Inc

He was known as a perfectionist, and wanted to control every aspect of his productions. This is evident at the very start of the exhibition, where the preparations for his Napoleon project, a film that never got made because of the cost, are recorded. During his research he logged every day in the emperor’s life, creating a card catalogue of the places and deeds of Napoleon’s inner circle. You also see it displayed in the meticulous way he recreated in the studios the facade of the Oregon Hotel for The Shining, and his comments on proposals for posters advertising that film, including: “I don’t like the dots for the logo. It will not look good small.”

Dr Strangelove - The Conference Table in the War Room ©Sony/Columbia Picture Industries Inc

In all, there are some 700 artefacts including props, photos, storyboards, and even cameras and lenses, with notes on which films they were used for. Each of his major films has its own section.

A Clockwork Orange Malcolm McDowell in the Korova Milkbar ©Warner Bros Entertainment Inc

It’s a trip down memory lane. A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, Dr Strangelove, Spartacus, Lolita, The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut, Paths of Glory, Full Metal Jacket and, of course, 2001: A Space Odyssey are all there, with pivotal segments shown in mini-cinemas (with very welcome seats). It all makes for a detailed and rewarding exhibition, and is a fitting tribute to Kubrick's genius. You'll find it hard to tear yourself away.

2001: A Space Odyssey still image ©Warner Bros Entertainment Inc

Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition. At the Design Museum, 224-238 Kensington High St, London W86AG to Sept 15 2019. Admission £16 (concessions available).

designmuseum.org

Writing: Making Your Mark

Ancient Egyptian stela 1600 BC c British Library Board

One of the first objects you see in this new exhibition at the British Library is a small limestone stele on which, 3,600 years ago, a scribe carved a hymn to the Egyptian god of the underworld, Osiris. It’s the Library’s oldest treasure, written in hieroglyphics, and although the hymn was known, this version is especially precious as it contains passages not recorded elsewhere. Today, just by tapping these words into a computer, I am following in the scribe’s footsteps, continuing a tradition that began some 5,000 years ago, in several different locations around the world. Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and the Americas all independently developed their own writing systems. These revolutionised society and are one of humankind’s greatest achievements. This limestone monument, more than two metres high, is covered in Maya hieroglyphs from Belize, and dates from 647 AD.

Large Maya limestone stela, Belize, 647AD c British Library Board

It's a fascination and thought-provoking exhibition, looking at the origins and evolution of writing - styles, materials, and  technology - as well as people’s relationships to it. More than 40 different systems are on show, ranging very early cuneiform on a clay tablet (listing offerings made to a Mesopotamian temple) to digital typefaces and emojis.

Caxton's printing of The Canterbury Tales c British Library Board

You can see how the alphabet developed, look at Britain’s earliest book, Caxton’s first printing of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales from 1476 (above), and wonder at a 2.44 metre-long papyrus scroll recording what must have been a very complex sale of property in Italy in 572 AD.

Ravenna papyrus 572 AD, c British Library Board

The many  items on display also include a Thai folding book, Chinese oracle bones, Burmese tattooing instruments and a 1905 petition signed by 60,000 people, protesting about the partition of Bengal.

Ancient Egyptian shabti 664 - 332 BC

Some of the objects were created for religious reasons, or to name or claim things. The inscription on this Ancient Egyptian figurine (above), designed to act on behalf of the deceased in the afterlife, reads: “Here I am, you will say, when called to work, cultivate fields, or irrigate the riverbanks”.

Schoolchild's homework in Greek, 2nd C AD c British Library Board

There are also some intriguing personal objects that resonate over the centuries. A wax tablet (above) shows how, almost 2000 years ago, a schoolchild struggled with his homework. His teacher had scratched two lines of Greek for him to copy. He does this twice, and each time makes mistakes, missing letters and running over the margin. Did he give up after that? Was he punished? We will never know. There’s also a quill pen used by the poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson, which he threw away after the nib got bent (perhaps damaged in the throes of inspiration?).  And a touching final entry to the diary kept by Robert Falcon Scott, written in the Antarctic when he knew his expedition was doomed: “For God’s sake, look after our people.”

Printing presses not dissimilar from those of Caxton were used for hundreds of years; this reproduction of an 18th C one employs much the same technology. Today, we have more choices about how to communicate than ever before – pictures, videos, voice recordings, emails and text, and technology seems to be moving these on at an every-increasing rate. The exhibition ends with an interactive display and a question: How will we send birthday greetings in 50 years’ time? I left pondering that and wondering: would anything written today still be read in 3,600 years’ time?

Writing: Making Your Mark is at the British Library until August 27, 2019. Admission £14, concessions available, children 11 and under free.
https://www.bl.uk/whats-on