ARTISTS
Miche Fabre Lewin & Flora Gathorne-Hardy

MEDIA
Broadsheets | charcoal | chalk | mixed papers & fibres | gold leaf | photoworks I acrylic paint

DIMENSIONS
Original panels between 1.5m and 2m length and 1.2m height | Photoworks varying dimensions

“Tasting Ubuntu Chronicles is the result of a committed collaboration over many years, a dynamic integration of photographic gesture with painterly gestural mark-making.  The work reflects an engaged and mindful sequence of remarkable moments.” Ulrich Wolff | Curator, Stellenbosch University Museum

Tasting Ubuntu Chronicles emerges from, responds to and manifests elements of Tasting Ubuntu food fermentation ritual - an artistic and culinary intervention curated within the Annex Studio of Stellenbosch University Museum in 2024. Collaborating with the Centre for the Study of the Afterlife of Violence (AVReQ) and Centre for Sustainability Transitions (CST) we explored how artistic practice can contribute to conversations around food cultures and social justice in South Africa.

Miche hosted Tasting Ubuntu, a contemporary food ritual dedicated to food sovereignty and racial justice. Together twenty-six people engaged in the hands-on practice of fermenting organic, locally grown cabbages sharing. Harnessing wild, airborne microorganisms within a bowl of cut cabbage, the skilling-up process enlivened our awareness of the connections between natural biodiversity and cultural diversity, as well how our physical bodily health is entwined with the health of the living soil. This collective experience the fermentation process also offered a metaphor to inspire conversations about social change.

'By the end of the fermentation ritual it all came together for me in such a profound sense of belonging. Sharing the food making, our stories and the shared food brought a sense of social cohesion and then I realised that this is what ubuntu means to me. It literally became a part of me and I could taste it. It birthed a deep sense of reverence and connection and groundedness which I have been longing for.'  Astrid Tetley-Gaotley | Stellenbosch University

The Chronicles emerged from a sequence of engagements with material generated from this convivial encounter - the matter of posters, documents, reports, drawings, photographs, paper food bags and other fond material. Through process of collage-making, iterative layering, pasting, peeling, painting and on a base of daily newspapers, they deepened into and discovered the eddying and interwoven elements of what it means to live within an Ubuntu dynamic.

This process of discovering new stories to live by continued in 2025 at the Annex Studio during their second Artists Residency, this time with Stellenbosch University Museum and the Centre for Sustainability Transitions. This second cycle embraced working with paints and charcoal, with repositionings of the sheets in the studio space and the incorporation of photoworks to the newspaper sheet series.