Future Alchemy

Future Alchemy

In this edition of the Jakarta Biennale, Hou I-Ting will construct a creative platform based on storytelling called Weaving Recipe—A New Normal of Archaeological and Feminine Narratives.  The work invites participants interested in ancient recipes, historical archaeology and sci-fi imagination to submit their future recipes. An emphasis will be placed on imagining all sorts of emergent moments a century later, the new order of the environment and its evolved relationship with all species, and techniques of caring for, transferring and mending the environment in the future.

Participants are encouraged to assume a non-human perspective to think up future organs, future food wars, future recipes, liquid and compost, and so on. For instance, one of the experiments will focus on exploring herbalism, the most ancient art of healing and cleansing. The artist will represent a moss recipe that was used as a medical treatment for tuberculosis in the ancient times and further imaginatively reinvent the recipe to propose future refining techniques. Related with the increasing number of plastic wastes being produced through food delivery service especially during the pandemic, It’s In Your Hands explores the idea of creating a plastic based food referring to plant based food trend that we have today.

In the future, when the condition of the soil is not as fertile as before, plastic based food is what we have left. Using plastic waste materials collected from variety of food deliveries, they create a series of food in Indonesian style such as Warteg or Padang restaurants. Apart from purchases from cell phone using a QR code, public will be able to purchase them through a vending machine on the exhibition site. The collective encourage public to showcase their purchase through their social media platform with the use of hashtags.