Join us for a presentation by Lindsay Kelley, Senior Lecturerr at the Australian National University School of Art and Design

Baking Strange: a WIP talk about an upcoming installation & the unwritten book that lurks beneath

What exactly do we eat when we eat a biscuit? Everyday objects like biscuits contain unexpected, dense connections that illuminate material and cultural networks. Thousands of years before biscuits could be purchased in packets from the grocery store, twice-baked breads circulated as military rations. When we eat biscuits, we digest their military ration predecessors with each mouthful. Their ingredients have commemorative significance and may function as reenactments of specific military contexts. Using taste and recipe formats as key methods, the multiyear research initiative Tasting History involves diverse publics in experiences of tasting and eating together.

Baking Strange seeks to defamiliarize the Anzac biscuit recipe literature and its methods. Included works emerge from archival research at the Australian War Memorial and participatory taste workshops conducted by the artist in collaboration with the Kandos branch of the Country Women’s Association, Cementa, Inc, and editor and videographer David Ryan. Loaned tins and research ephemera document the ongoing multiyear research project Tasting History: Biscuits, Culture, and National Identity. This work was produced on unceded Gadigal-Bidjigal, Ngunnawal-Ngambri, Wiradjuri, and Cabrogal land.

Photo credit Pia van Gelder.

Lindsay Kelley is Senior Lecturer at the School of Art and Design, Australian National University. The recipient of an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, she is the author of Bioart Kitchen: Art, Feminism and Technoscience and has exhibited and performed internationally.

Sir Roland Wilson Building Theatrette

Room 2.02, ground floor, 120 McCoy Circuit, Acton 2601

Those who can't attend in person, can join via Zoom: https://anu.zoom.us/j/85040251751?pwd=RDlGbDVxNmpTUW9TVzdYQXUyVkhyUT09

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