NYU Shanghai’s Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) celebrates its fifth anniversary with the launch of a new exhibition, Sour Things, featuring the work of Palestinian artist Mirna Bamieh. The exhibit and programming explores the process of fermentation as a metaphor. The exhibition marks the start of a new two-year long artistic research season for ICA, entitled “Lightless Fires.”
The exhibition is part of an on-going series by Bamieh, who began reflecting on the process of fermentation in 2019. “What fascinates me is how fermentation is an action of transformation that somehow is initiated by humans, but then goes beyond their control and their predictability. There are always surprises happening in the jar,” said Bamieh. “You cannot fully control what the bacteria is doing inside the jar, what kind of transformation it’s going through.”
The project was first exhibited at the 2023 Sharjah Biennial in the United Arab Emirates as an abandoned 1970s marketplace and early this year in the Netherlands as a pantry. In Shanghai, the artist shifts her attention to the kitchen, a transition from the public site of the market to one in the home. The exhibition features a countertop, sink, and shelves on which jars of lemons in varying stages of fermentation sit. Scattered under the countertop are more lemons along with large ceramic hands and piles of salt. A glowing neon yellow sign reading “sour” and “lemons” in Arabic script hangs on the wall across from the countertop. The artist’s writings on her personal histories along with pickling recipes for fruits, vegetables, and bread are displayed on a long table a few feet away from the kitchen structure. “Recipes are story carriers – the voice of the people, of resistance, of daily life, and a way for people to survive despite what is happening around them, particularly for nations like Palestine,” Bamieh said.
ICA curator Michelle Yeonho Hyun said when she first encountered Bamieh’s Sour Things it brought to mind memories of food storage during Shanghai’s 2022 Covid-19 lockdown and inspired her to bring the exhibition to Shanghai. At the core of the exhibition, she said, are questions about individual and collective memory, archiving history, and fermentation as a metaphor for resistance and change. “It offers some hope in the end, right?” she said. “Because this is a process for things that, in other circumstances, would just die. And we think of death as this final end. But what fermentation offers is that death is sort of a step in the process.”
The ICA invited the NYU Shanghai community and the public to an opening reception for Sour Things on Thursday, September 19. Visitors tucked into Lebanese food catered by local restaurateur Wael Accad from Eli Falafel restaurant and fermented vegetables provided by local pickle master Jin Ruijun. The reception was a nod to Bamieh’s live art project Palestine Hosting Society, which the artist describes as “dinner performances aimed at revitalizing Palestinian food cultures and traditions on the verge of disappearing.”
After visiting the exhibit, make sure to join one of ICA’s hands-on fermentation workshops led by local practitioners. On October 19, Diao Wei, co-owner of the Guizhou-inspired restaurant Maolago, will lead a cooking workshop, teaching participants how to cook fermented sour soup, a traditional food of the Miao ethnic group in Southwest China. Associate Arts Professor of Interactive Media Arts (IMA) Marcela Godoy will lead two workshops on kombucha-making and tasting on November 1 and December 6. On November 16, the ICA will lead a field trip to nearby Sanlin Old Street, where participants will take a guided walking tour through the historic area and visit a traditional pickle shop to learn from third-generation pickle master Jin Ruijun.
Mirna Bamieh’s exhibition Sour Things will be on display at the ICA until December 21. Community members will also be happy to know that access to the ICA is being improved. The gallery will be accessible from inside H!Time Hall from Tuesdays through Thursdays, 11am-6pm. Fridays through Sundays, the outside doors will be open, to welcome in the public.