Bread
Date:
2016
Ref:
0690
Materials:
5 wooden wheelbarrows from rural China, cast aluminium loaves of bread, laquered glass, aluminium
Dimensions:
500 x 500 x 100 cm
Exhibition history:
2016 City Gallery and Museum Peterborough, UK
Courtesy:
Lucy + Jorge Orta
This work was created as a result of the ephemeral 70 x 7 The Meal, which Lucy + Jorge Orta staged in the city of Peterborough (September, 2015), as part of the Harvest festival, during which hundreds of loaves of bread were baked by local residents and placed on a symbolic offering table. To perpetuate the memory of the event, the artists cast a selection of the loaves into aluminium preserving forever the generosity of the community and the acts of sharing and giving. Lucy + Jorge Orta have arranged the aluminium casts on a large, circular glass plinth, which is supported by five wooden wheelbarrows they purchased on their first trip to China in 2006. Like the bread, these simple transport vehicles are universal immemorial symbols; humble objects from rural origins, crossing cultures and centuries reminding us of the ancestral act of making, of hand-sculpting wood and dough to create unique manifestations of human needs.