A Salty Solution, 2021

‘The cure for anything is salt water – sweat, tears, or the sea’ – Swedish Proverb

‘To get to know people, you have to eat a full donkey’s cargo of salt together’ Corsican Proverb

A Salty Solution is a speculative proposal for collective exploration of salt’s material, sensory and social values. Courting the sensory commonalities of salt, the project will reflect on everything from its piquant flavour to the nauseating effects of its excessive consumption, and from the way that the trade in salt produces communities to the political reverberations of what and how we consume.

* As we return to dining together after lockdown, the intersection of the personal and the political are ever-present. Through collective enquiry into the frequent act of eating and its accompanying activities (shopping, shipping, growing, heating, curing, etc) how can we adapt to negotiate a more ecologically responsible form of consumption?

* And can this collaborative creative exploration of common salt, its global variances, uses and myriad of claims from curing to curdling, salaries to friendship-making, in turn strengthen and stimulate social forms?

‘A Salty Solution’ would be a series of enquiries in the form of interactions, conversations and public events ( from field trips and dinners to experts in convo) that seek to establish new metaphors and change through research, creativity, radical thinking, and sharing in the common form of salt. The project will draw together artists, environmental experts and public imaginings, interests, anecdotes and knowledge of the the familiar and the unfamiliar aspects of salt, and how it intersects with wider climate change issues. Findings will be shared and may take the form of manifestos, recipes, anecdotes and knowledge sharing.

This project is person-centred and aims to be responsive to the collective imagination of all collaborators. Interactions can happen together or from afar, and will be designed with consideration of Construal Level Theory of psychological distance. We will draw upon formats of stories and storytelling and situates salt as the commonality between all of us. It plays upon the rich global history and social values of salt, aiming to resonate locally and globally.

Laura Eldret, July 2021.