Kulturlabor, Institut Pasteur de Tunis · Dos Mares, Marseille - Biennale de Dakar - Parallel Vienna
« Have you been carrying a sense of injustice for some time now? Don't panic. »
Media : Installation , Artist Book , Field Investigation , Participatory
Themes : Politics & Revolution , Body , Food
Karama Survival Kit is a limited-edition survival kit — a white box marked with a red cross, containing everything needed to make your own dignity, using bread and water.
Watch it grow magnificent mould.
Then throw it away without ever opening it.
The project emerged from two residencies in 2016.
The first, Kulturlabor, took place at the Institut Pasteur de Tunis — a research residency dedicated to understanding and controlling the moulding process of food. I conducted a series of experiments: growing mould on the Arabic word “Neema” (food), and photographing samples of discarded food under a microscope.
The results were surprising. The infinitely small seemed to lead to the infinitely large. From certain angles, the microscopic photographs looked like planets in outer space.
The second residency, Dos Mares in Marseille, focused on research into survival food — food in times of war, scarcity, and emergency.
These two lines of research led to the creation of the kit.
A seven-day experiment.
The viewer follows the protocol step by step: wet the Tunisian bread, place the plexiglass stencil spelling the word “Karama”, and leave the mould to do its work in a dark, humid place.
From time to time, observe the development of mouldy dignity through the transparent lid.
Do not open.
When it starts to smell — throw it away.
Karama Survival Kit is part of a longer research process.
In 2011, Nous ne mangerons plus de ce pain-là — portraits of Ben Ali left to mould.
In 2016, the Surreal Flag series — the first attempt to make the words “dignity, work and freedom” (karama, choghl, horriya) mould in Arabic, the three main demands of the revolution.
The kit is the culmination of this research: mould as a political process.
→ Watch the video
The kit was supposed to be sold on Amazon.
It never was.
Medium / Date
Limited-edition survival kit: polystyrene box, plexiglass stencil, Tunisian bread, spray bottle, gloves, instructions.
Kulturlabor, Institut Pasteur de Tunis, 2016 — Dos Mares, Marseille, 2016.
→ See also : We Will No Longer Eat This Bread - Surreal Flag