Born At The Kitchen Table.

One of the problems with language is people’s ability to speak lots and say nothing. This can be used as a weapon, a means of obfuscation that can create confusion and misunderstanding. Visual art is also a language, one which many people would suggest that they “don’t understand” but, I would argue, that it allows for a form of dialogue between people that the spoken word does not encourage.

The language of visual art can be a language of reflection and introspection. Whereas spoken language is often about debate and persuasion, the passing on of ideas and information with the intention of moving the view point of others; visual art can be a free space where language is reduced to symbols, oblique or otherwise, no words necessary, just thoughts and time, a quietness that life does not generally provide us with in which we can decide what the truth of any matter is, or could be.

This may all sound a bit, dare I say hippy and inconclusive; strategies for the avoidance of taking a position on subjects one way or another, but I would suggest that taking a position too quickly on certain things does not necessarily equate to good decision making. Rarely is it the case that the first idea is the best idea. There are valuable lessons to be learnt from sitting back, contemplating, revising, remaking, rewording and eventually coming to a position that is genuinely of your own belief, but is informed by learning from the experience of those around in relation to oneself. Stand for something or you will fall for anything, or so they say!

Wintering is an exhibition that tackles many subjects head on, yet does so in a subtle and understated way. It does not try to beat one around the head until a position is accepted or forced upon the viewer. As with many exhibitions at BasementArtsProject it is one that sits back and waits for the viewer to approach it with an open mind, spend time looking, questioning its meaning and ultimately questioning ones own interpretation.

Kristina Nenova is a Bulgarian Artist, living and studying in the UK. Her work is bound up in things that are not on the surface considered art practice but, on deeper analysis, reveal something creative that exists with in us all, whether we recognise it or not.

“Kristina’s exhibition consisted of jars of pickled vegetables and incorporated photographs and memories. Another interesting object had also been pickled and the explanation was poignant, thought provoking and deeply moving. Themes of identity, heritage, culture, recipes, traditions, the work had so much depth.”

Deb N

Kristina is currently working on her MA in Fine Art at Leeds Beckett University but my first encounter with her work was at the end-of-degree graduation exhibition, also at Leeds Beckett. For this she had created a series of banners that looked at what it meant to acquire Britishness in the context of migration and education. Based on my interest in this subject I invited Kristina to do a project with BasementArtsProject.

‘Wintering’ was the next step in this artist’s development of her theme. The work is still highly personal and linked to cultural identity but here it approaches it from the point of view of family tradition and memories. In one room the artists grandma sits on a bench covered in a green throw in Hyde Park. The green throw is significant in so much as the material, loved by her grandma, is used in various ways throughout the exhibition and is apparently extremely popular in Bulgaria. All of the other photographs in the exhibition have been taken from her grandmother’s photo album. Some are presented in frames and depict significant objects whilst others are reproduced smaller and are presented as part of jars of pickled vegetables.   

Throughout the exhibition jars of homemade pickles are in abundance: on plinths, tables, the floor, the staircase and on shelves. Pickling is one of the family traditions looked at in depth as part of this exhibition. There are books explaining how to pickle: in Bulgarian -once again the written word fails us- and jars containing different combinations of veg and herbs, preserved for the long, cold winter months. Through the transference of this information we will not go hungry during winter, neither physically or spiritually. These jars are not just artifice though, objects presented purely for the purpose of making a point, but all are properly pickled, edible and are to be taken away, a gift from the artist to visitors.

In the front exhibition space a video loops depicting the artist going through the process of pickling. Only here she is not pickling vegetables, so what is it that is being pickled? The keen-eyed visitor may have noticed a single jar, lager than all of the others, presented on a plinth on its own at the end of a long corridor and protected by a red velvet rope, preventing the viewer from getting too close. The jar contains the artist’s passport, the object that is being pickled in the film.

This passport remains the property of the Crown / Този пасппорт е собственост на Република България (2024) was nominated for the BAZA Art Prize 2024, and was presented originally as part of the associated group exhibition at Sofia City Art Gallery in Bulgaria. The work has generated much discussion during its time in ‘The Basement’ around not just the subject of identity, but the problematic idea of identity being bound up in a physical object, the ownership of which is always retained by the state; defining who we are whilst simultaneously stopping us from being who we could be.

“Themes of identity, heritage, culture, recipes, traditions, the work had so much depth. Having the opportunity to chat to the artist brought her work to life and left us talking about it for a long after we left.”
Deb N

“The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.”

Jo Harjo: Perhaps the World Ends Here (1994)

The Lunchtime Conversation is a regular fixture at BasementArtsProject. It is an informal opportunity for visitors to sit and chat to the incumbent artist over a home cooked meal. This month’s event broke with the tradition of: Basement cooks, whilst artist sits and chats with those gathered around the kitchen table. For this event Kristina continued the theme of her exhibition in the most practical of ways by preparing one of the dishes -a rather wonderful lentil and vegetable stew. For Kristina this is the smell of Bulgaria; a reminder of home, her grandma and her culture.

In terms of how this works as art, it speaks volumes with regard to the phenomenological framework of BasementArtsProject’s wider remit; the idea that those things we experience in life somehow inform our growth as individuals and stimulate our minds through the stimulation of other senses. Kandinsky saw colours when he listened to music and this informed his painting and similarly so Kristina’s experience of life itself has informed her own way of working, in the process influencing her practice in a rather unique way. In the process of cooking with memories, the traditions are passed on, memories kept alive and shared, and through this we come to understand another persons view of the world.

‘It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.[…]This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.”
Jo Harjo: Perhaps the World Ends Here (1994)

Bruce Davies. October 2024