Gwago patabágun ___ We will eat presently

21 August - 31 October 2010

In front of the Museum of Contemporary Art as part of

durational site-specific installation including mobile food cart and apiary (found materials, steel, timber, bicycle wheels, solar panel, cooking equipment, beehive with native stingless bees, local honey), public picnics

Site design by Makeshift

Gwago Patabágun ___ We will eat presently (2010) is a mobile sculpture and series of public actions designed to re-activate the historically loaded site of the MCA. This location has long been an important food gathering area for Indigenous people and was also home to the Commissariat Store, built in 1812 by Governor Macquarie to supply provisions for the burgeoning colony. Inspired by mobile structures used by food hawkers across Asia, Zettel and Khoe’s re-engineered cart incorporates a beehive of native stingless bees and all the equipment needed to serve freshly cooked pikelets and honey to the public. Responding to the contemporary urban food crisis, as well as the site’s Indigenous and colonial histories, this work is a platform for imagining, researching and discussing the future of food. It also functions as a model for localised food production and distribution in a city environment.

Tessa Zettel & Karl Khoe collaborate together as Makeshift on a wide range of critical and creative projects spanning sculpture and installation, drawing, printmaking, object and graphic design, teaching, writing and curating. In all their guises Makeshift have a particular concern for enabling sustainable futures through redirective practice and unpacking the various ways landscapes are contested and reshaped by social, climatic and other forces.

For more information and past works visit www.makeshift.com.au

Join the artists and special guests for a series of picnic-discussion events during the exhibition. The cart will be opened up and will be serving hot pikelets with (very) local honey. Bring your own plates and cutlery, meet our native stingless bees and take part in a lively dialogue around the precarious past lives and futures of Sydney Cove.

Sunday 22 August, 11:00am – 12:00noon
Guest Speaker: Jacqui Newling Colonial gastronomer

Wednesday 1 September, 5:00 – 6:00pm
Guest Speaker: Sally Parslow Local resident of The Rocks

Saturday 2 October, 11:00am – 12:00noon
Guest Speaker: Richard Goodwin Artist and architect

Coverage on the project and the exhibition

'Arty solutions to climate change' on 702 ABC Sydney - 5/11/10

Radio National: Artworks - 29/8/10

Weekends 702 ABC Sydney - 29/08/2010

The artists wish to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Dr Tim Heard and his bees (sugarbag.net), Fiona Hall, Anna Davis, David Bowan (Bobo Bicycles), Allan Giddy at the Environmental Research Initiative for Art (ERIA), COFA @ Talyors Square and all the picnic-discussion guest speakers.