Bread Head - Christine Cynn, Valentin Manz, Harriet Murray and Neil Taylor

About

* NB This is event is at:
Faberei Gallery, Claude Lorraine Str 25, 81543 Munich, Germany

Inspired by a desire to think positively about our future, particularly with regard to the uncertanties surrounding the current economical climate and multinational food production, we bring you Bread Head. The project was first developed by Campbell Works in London, 2011 through a collaboration between artists Harriet Murray, Neil Taylor, Valentin Manz and Christine Cynn, all of whom share a passion for inspiring social change through art and a love of bread.

The term 'bread head' is often used derogatorily to describe someone who is obsessed with the monetary value of things, and thereby implying that this sort of valuation is wrong-headed and that there ought to be a brain rather than a bap between one's ears. By making bread heads for both consumption and exhibition, we raise questions about what values and meanings are invested in the food we eat, both personally and as a society.

Bread has been eaten for about 10,000 years (8000 BC). Over the centuries the process has been refined and adapted and yet many of us have now lost the art of making this delicious staple food. Through the development of a portable wood fired oven and beautiful hand made ceramic moulds, Bread Head can transform almost any space into a working bakery, enabling the audience to 'use their loaf' and engage in an intimate and yet complex way with both the physical and political aspects of bread and dough.

At the heart of the process is an appreciation of waiting, natural yeasts are slow and need time to digest the flour and multiply. The smells of fermentation and baking permeates the air. Time creates flavour and complexity, and as we wait, we connect to the magic of basic things.

Following the hugely successfull production stage at Diessen Töpfermarkt, the freshly baked bread sculptures are now prersented at Färberei in a new context. The Bread Head's are displayed in a darkened room, lit only by a single bulb, so that the assorted pile of loaves takes on a phrophetic potency, echoing images of mountain cairns, NGO relief agency food drops, as well as conjouring a host of darker refereces and readings.