BREAD AS SOCIAL SCULPTURE
In June 2021, we organized a community gathering around creating sculptures with dough.
While kneading and molding, we reflected on dough’s potential as artistic material as well as contemplated our roles as consumers. How can making our own bread allow us to connect with our food in a deeper way? Can fermentation, kneading, molding and baking become a form of political activism or help forge social bonds with our peers?
Modern bread has skipped the step of creative molding and often remains untouched by human hands. Preset molds and shapes have almost entirely alienated us from the sculptural and creative potential of bread. Its perception as a sacred object is becoming less common as religious and spiritual rituals around bread decline in our contemporary society.
Through the lens of “social sculpture”, which artist Joseph Beuys regarded as a work of art made by human activity that strives to restructure society or the environment, bread sculpting can be seen as a metaphor for imagining and shaping a more just society, all the while connecting with people in a creative process.
Initiated with the financial support of Goethe-Institut Tunesien