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PRESS RELEASE Wed 17 August 2016

Talking Dirty: Tongue First! Recipes from the Mouth of the Thames (book cover). Images from inside the book, Arts Catalyst 2016

*Look inside the book in Notes to Editors

Arts Catalyst announces new publication

Talking Dirty: Tongue First! Recipes from the Mouth of the Thames

Now available to buy from Cornerhouse Publications: http://bit.ly/TalkingDirtyRecipes Price £15

Talking Dirty: Tongue First! Recipes from the Mouth of the Thames is an ecopolitical

recipe book by artist Fran Gallardo and Claudia Lastra, commissioned by Arts Catalyst. The

recipes were researched, tested and compiled by Gallardo in collaboration with people on

the Essex coast of the Thames Estuary. Through a “tongue first” approach, the book

explores the tastes, ingredients, changing ecology, health, culture and geopolitics of

estuary and global food production. Using the tongue as an investigatory tool to explore

this landscape, the book draws a upon our history and contemporary issues of our

consumption and the industries that produce our food, focusing on the interconnected

and global issues of climate change, modern day slavery, pollutants and invasive species.

The book contains instructions for sourcing ingredients along the Thames Estuary, testing

them for pollutants and cooking with them alongside experimenting with new forms of

extraction of edibles from human and other biological substances to create meals which

are breakdown and reimagine the ingredients’ complexities. Recipes include Grey Mullet

and Hair Soy Sauce, Inhaling Fogs and Airs of the Thames Estuary, Vertical Commons

Salad (including arsenic) with Blackberry Vinegar, Slave Shrimp, Mud Cola and The

Invasive Flood (Semi-Invasive Species Soup).

Through introducing people to ingredients sourced from the Thames in open air public

cooking and tasting workshops in Leigh-on-Sea, the book’s authors engaged with local

people about environmental and industrial changes taking place in the estuary, and their

social impact. Informing the research for the publication was a series of workshops, led by

artist-technologist Andy Freeman, the citizen science workshops investigated traces of

waste disposal on the ‘unnatural’ nature reserve of Two Tree Island, Leigh-on-Sea, with Dr

Mark Scrimshaw, Reader in Environmental Chemistry at Brunel University and Marc Outen

(Reserves Manager, Essex Wildlife Trust). These citizen science workshops involved the

use of digital technologies to investigate the legacy of generations of industrial use and

misuse in the estuary landscape, and reflect more broadly on the interactions between

industrialisation, farming and local effects of global climate change, and their impact on

human health and wildlife habitats.

Talking Dirty is part of Wrecked on The Intertidal Zone, an art and citizen science project

to uncover and highlight local knowledge about the changing ecology, society and industry

of the Thames Estuary. Led by artists YoHa, Critical Art Ensemble, Andy Freeman and Fran

Gallardo, and curated by Arts Catalyst.

The recipe book, research and programme of events are supported by Arts Council England

and the Wellcome Trust.

Details Talking Dirty: Tongue First! Recipes from the Mouth of the Thames

ISBN 978-0-9927776-9-2

Authors Fran Gallardo and Claudia Lastra

Edited by Claudia Lastra

Published by Arts Catalyst, August 2016

Designed by Abake & Sandra Junker

Colour & monochrome, 55 pages, hardback

Price £15

Purchase via Cornerhouse Publications: http://bit.ly/TalkingDirtyRecipes

ends.

Interviews, images and further information available on request.

Contact details:

Jessica Wallis, Communications Officer

E: Jessica.wallis@artscatalyst.org

T: +44 (0)20 7278 8373

Claudia Lastra, Programme Manager

E: claudia.lastra@artscatalyst.org

T: +44 (0)20 7278 8373

www.artscatalyst.org

Twitter @TheArtsCatalyst

Facebook /TheArtsCatalyst

Notes to Editors: 1) Arts Catalyst commissions artists who critically and experimentally engage with science and technology. It is one of

the UK’s most distinctive arts organisations, distinguished by ambitious art commissions and its unique take on art-

science practice. The organisation is funded by Arts Council England as part of its National Portfolio. Over 21 years, it has

commissioned more than 125 UK and international artists’ projects, often at pivotal moments in artists’ careers,

including major projects by Tomas Saraceno, Aleksandra Mir, Agnes Meyer-Brandis, Carey Young, Jan Fabre and the

Otolith Group. Arts Catalyst works with artists and scientists to create artworks and generate new ideas exploring

science and its role in society and culture: from the nature of air to environmental change, interspecies communication

to the future of the moon. It aims to give audiences distinctive, thought-provoking experiences and to play a leading role

in the dialogue around interdisciplinary artistic practice. The organisation collaborates with world-class galleries,

museums, universities, arts organisations, science institutions and research centres.

2) Fran Gallardo is a critical thinker whose background includes studies in design, biochemistry and space systems

engineering. Within the umbrella of critical practices, Fran's research explores environmentally embedded violence,

collated in processes of environmentality, geo-power and liquid-life. He is currently developing forms of tongue-led

inquiry in order to reintroduce the material intractability of global trade, the diminishing virtual negantropism of maritime

finalisation, immiserate remote labour-power, alluring myths of ecological cosmopolitanism and other heterotopias

flowing through the Thames Estuary.

3) Claudia Lastra has a background in Fine Art and an MA in Material and Visual Culture in Anthropology at UCL. At Arts

Catalyst she is the Programme Manager, producing and co-curating exhibitions, public events, writer and editor of

publications. Currently she is working on participatory programmes for Arts Catalyst and researching ecological and

industrial sites in the UK.

3) Wrecked on the Intertidal Zone was a series of investigations into the Thames Estuary led by YoHa and Arts Catalyst

that ran from 2013 to 2016. Wrecked aimed to bring together a network of local people with artists and technologists to

explore how local situated knowledge of the Thames Estuary can be combined with artistic investigations and citizen

science techniques to explore and respond to a changing contested Estuary. It comprised of two projects that ran

simultaneously: Graveyard of Lost Species and Talking Dirty: Tongue First!

Talking Dirty: Tongue First! was a series of public events involving local foods, their source, preparation and consumption,

leading to a recipe book produced in collaboration with the situated knowledge of South Essex people.

http://wrecked.artscatalyst.org

Look inside the book: