Finishing room is an ongoing project with an accumulating archive of organic goat cheeses. Each of these projects is initiated with the help of a local cheesemaker whose product provides a starting point; a unique artisanal expression of the region. Fresh, locally produced organic goat cheeses are brought to each installation where, over time, they age over the course of the exhibition. During this time they inevitably play host to diverse microbiological interactions that occur within the exhibition space. As the cheeses age and harden they create a surprisingly durable, microbiological document of the particular time and place of the exhibition--that includes the invisible microbiological culture that a living breathing art audience brings to the situation. The end product of the each exhibition is added to a growing
Finishing room archive of ripened, desiccated cheeses--each absolutely unique in microbial make-up. Finishing room installations function in a manner similar to highly controlled "finishing" operations employed by cheesemakers, but here they open the door to random microbial interactions--contamination becoming the attraction and as it enlarges the pool of captured microbial data. These projects are an extended exploration of site-specificity, and the concept of
local. Installations include a variety of adapted structures within gallery and museum, as well as various outdoor settings, that create enclosed hyper local micro-climates that activate the "finishing" process and create an intimate encounter with the complex nutrients on display. Past installations in Germany have taken place at Galerie Klosterfelde Berlin, Kokerei Essen, Muldorf Austria, Overbeck-gasellschaft Luebeck, ABC Art Berlin, and other sites.
Link to video tour of Muldorf, Austria installation
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| Sample from the Finishing Room archive, 1999, Berlin. |
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2009 Lübeck, Germany
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| 2009 Lübeck, Germany |
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