Although there are many collaborators and friends of the Center, Cat and Zack have formed the heart of the team in most locations. The Center is currently at work on the “Spice Mix Super Computer” for AND’s Mobile Republic.

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On our adventures traversing the globe, we have not stayed anywhere for more than 4 months in the past 2 years. With such a nomadic existence, ‘where we make’ is always changing.

On a flight: a good place to think, read and sketch, and catch up with stuff offline.

We have developed a variety of strategies for concentration and focus. For example, Zack works best early in the morning at a coffee shop with headphones on listening to drone music, while Cat works best in the peace of the late night when it seems the world has gone to sleep there are no other distractions (except for the occasional snore from Zack).

Just in the last week, we have worked at Bold Street cafe in Liverpool, on a plane, a train, in an airbnb room in Manhattan, and right now at a house with a large kitchen garden in Connecticut, charging our computers along the way and catching wireless connections where we can. These strategies have worked to greater or lesser effect in all of our temporary accommodations over the last year:

CANADA (Vancouver)
INDIA (Bangalore, the Koorgi Region)
IRELAND (Dublin)
NETHERLANDS (Amsterdam, Leiden, Rotterdam)
NORWAY (Oslo, Stavanger, Bergen)
SINGAPORE
SWEDEN (Stockholm, Uppsala)
UK (Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool, London, Milton Keynes)
USA (Portland, New York City, Connecticut)

Our amsterdam apartment and office, while working on Pray for beans Project. The closer the deadline, the bigger the mess!

Every place we visit is an opportunity to connect unexpected dots. Moving around so much means we can exchange ideas, artifacts and recipes between seemingly unconnected places and people. I am sure we wouldn’t be making a Spice Mix Super-Computer in the UK if we hadn’t spent time in Bangalore being drawn into spice-rich karnatakan cuisine. Our Smog Tasting project in Bangalore was prompted by a quote in Harold McGee’s “On Food & Cooking” which seems like a particularly American approach to food. And so on.

Smog Tasting took us to the rooftops of Bangalore for a week of in-situ cooking.

The AND festival’s Mobile Republic is a microcosm of our last year. So far we have visited Manchester, Liverpool and London to work on the project, and we will be taking the caravan on the road to 4 locations in northern England. Taking on a project like this in an unfamiliar place is always a challenge because the simple tasks, such as sourcing various materials, become research efforts in their own right. The upside is that we generally see the places we visit from an unusual perspective. There can’t be many visitors to Liverpool who have strolled along Edge Lane to visit the B&Q.

The sign with no sign on edge lane by b&q, Liverpool, source: google maps

We do not have a permanent home or studio. We have attempted to consolidate our travel kit to the absolute essentials, but it is hard to bring an entire kitchen with us!

Here is an example of our other work space in the Netherlands: the kitchen of a restaurant that we took over for one evening. (Photo Credit: Lucas Evers)

Following food stories around the globe has been amazing, but we are looking forward to finding a landing spot and opening up the Center for Genomic Gastronomy as a non-nomadic entity. Maybe 2013?

All images are courtesy and © The Center of Genomic Gastronomy

Find out more:
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Want to take a look at more suggested blogs by artists? Look here.

Credit: NVA

Central Station talk to Angus Farquhar, the man behind NVA, the politically driven public arts organisation who are hosting this weekend’s Glasgow Harvest event which celebrates urban growing.

How did NVA become involved in Glasgow Harvest?

The idea behind the Glasgow Harvest was simply that although Glasgow has a large community growing their own food it often takes place in the secret world of allotments, or in back gardens or balconies and I thought it would be good to bring all that activity out into the open to expand people’s sense of being part of something larger than themselves.

How does the project fit in with NVA’s broader philosophy?

It was a very conscious decision to work with the politics of food production and we got involved with Rolf Roscher (who runs an innovative landscape architecture practice ERZ), in delivering SAGE – Sow and Grow Everywhere, a region wide strategy to encourage the productive re-use and transformation of private and public land to grow food. The Harvest itself, has no audience, you participate by bringing food you have grown within a recipe or a pot of jam, so in this sense everyone has a productive role to play, with the only consumption being the food itself! We have made more and more works which are completed by the creative or physical actions of the public and horticulture is another way to extend and make visible a really vital and necessary part of urban living.

Credit: NVA

NVA takes a collective approach to its projects – tell us a bit more about the other groups you’re working with for Glasgow Harvest.

It’s a great eclectic mix, 20 schools growing tatties in rubble bags to make the best chips they can, (there was a horrific stat a few years ago that in one London primary school less than half a class knew that chips came from potatoes…)

85A have created their wonderfully surreal punk herb caps as an esoteric solution to lack of growing space in the city environment.

Acreative containers competition relies on the imagination of anyone who brings an unusual growing receptacle….all in all I think a village fete on acid, probably sums up our approach!

Central Station also recently did a project for Glasgow Harvest (called ‘twEATs’) – how did this partnership come about?

We were really excited by the way social media tools were used to extend the understanding and ownership of the White Bike Plan that we created for Glasgow International. We set another challenge to CenSta to come up with a lively way of allowing people to share an aspect of food growing or consumption and ‘twEATS’ was born, the booklet of donated recipes and graphic representations that we will give away on the day looks pretty sharp.

What do you think is the most interesting aspect of the use of social media in a creative project such as Glasgow Harvest?

It allows a group of people for whom those tools are a part of their everyday communication systems to explore a personal act (growing or cooking) in a collective context.

What aspect of the Glasgow Harvest project are you most excited about?

The hair clippings from the Herbaceous Barbershop being swept into allotment soup and tasting delicious…

Glasgow Harvest took place on 28 August 2010. Find out how it all went here.

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To find out what Tasty twEATS & Harvest 2010, click here.

The smoke has cleared, the dishes have been collected, there’s a faint tang of lemon and garlic in the air, and all around the country people are looking forward to twEATs 2: The Leftovers – we think it’s fair to say the night was a delicious success.

Led through the cooking of a mystery dish – revealed to be ‘Lemony courgettes on toast with pumpkin seed and parsley pesto’ – by Tim Maddams, Head Chef at Axminister Canteen and Deli, twEATers threw themselves into the spirit of the event with gusto:

“I may have taken too long making sure my ingredients looked just right…”
Credit: @ErinMcElhinney

with roughly 4 minutes before someone began flirting with chef…

Once the “essential preliminary step” had been issued by Tim:

Credit: River Cottage

And dutifully followed:

“Mine’s a g’n't!”
Credit: @glittrgirl

The cooking commenced.

Delicious smells began to rise, of crushed parsley, roasted pumpkin seeds and grated garlic, as the pumpkin seed and parsley pesto took shape:

Credit:@cambusnethanpi

Next came the courgettes, the browning of which caused a bit of drama in one twEATers kitchen:

But by 8pm the vast majority were proudly tucking in to their creations:

Credit: @ErinMcElhinney

Credit: @cmktweets

The verdict was unanimously positive, with clean plates and satisfied groans from all:

as well as several enthusiastic calls for a repeat event:

A huge, huge thanks to Tim, River Cottage, Landshare and NVA, who all worked to make twEATs happen – and to you, for taking part. You can find the recipe Tim used (and more) in the River Cottage Every Day Book.

Now make sure you come along to Glasgow Harvest, NVA’s celebration of urban growing, on 28th August, to pick up your limited edition recipe book, featuring a double page spread on twEATs – you may see your tweets and pics in print!

Credit: NVA

Credit: River Cottage

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To find out what Tasty twEATS & Harvest 2010, click here.

Did we miss your food-related work? Add yours to the bottom of the list.

1.Eat by nikkimcwilliams

Strawberry syrup and hundreds and thousands – a tasty photograph by artist and maker Nikki Williams.

2.Liberty by Jenny_Hood

A meditation on our relationship with food – liberating or restricting?

3.Skipping Dinner by CamcorderGuerillas

Part of an installation that comments on the connections between climate change and industrialised food production, supermarket-based shopping and consumer waste. Held at the CCA in June 2009.

4.Marks & Spencers’ 125th Exhibition by Emily Robertson

Illustration for British department store by London based artist Emily Roberston.

5. 4 by tonii

One of a series of photographs that question our attitude towards the aesthetics of food.

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See more of our Top 5 selections here.