Culture and Starters: S.E. Nash’s Cultural InquiryThrough Fermentation
Etta Sandry takes a microscopic view of the concept of culture in the work of S. E. Nash
While listening to an interview with the artist S.E. Nash and other fermentation enthusiasts
on an episode of KCUR’s program Central Standard, I was struck by the use of the word
“culture.” Taken from the Merriam-Webster English Dictionary online, the definition of
“culture” in a scientific context is the act or process of cultivating living material (such as
bacteria or viruses) in prepared nutrient media; also: a product of such cultivation. In the
terminology of fermentation, this is the “starter”: a portion of food or nutrient substrate—
wheat in a sourdough starter, for example—that has been colonized by bacteria that will
enact the fermentation process.
S.E. Nash
Lactobacillus Amongus Exhibition Installation at Plug Projects
“Culture” is more commonly thought of in a social context, where the meaning refers to the
development of human knowledge and the resulting beliefs, behavior, and social practices
that are enacted to share and preserve that knowledge within a group. Both uses of the
“culture” originate in its Latin root, “colere” meaning to tend or cultivate. The original use of
the word referred to a knowledge of the land. As human history developed, the contextual
meaning expanded to include the cultivation of the mind.
S.E. Nash’s work investigates culture through all understandings of the word. Beginning in
2015 with a show titled They/Them/Their, at Black Ball Projects in New York, Nash began
incorporating micro-organisms and fermented foods in their work. Amorphous sculptures
made of paper maché, burlap, and paint housed glass vessels of fermenting foods including
kimchi and kombucha. Each sculpture is created with the specific fermentation vessel in
mind and the color, form, and shape are informed by Nash’s interpretation of the spirit of the
microbes in the food fermenting. Wall works such as An Incomplete Index of Bacterial
Morphology gave the viewer an enlarged visual abstraction of a look under a microscope.
Members of New York’s fermentation community were invited to leave jars of their personal
ferments on a shelf in the gallery for the duration of the exhibition and Nash hosted
programming around the process of food fermentation from initiation to consumption.
S.E. Nash
The stability of sourdough ecosystem during time is debated
70 in. x 48 in. x 36 in.
Wood, polyurethane foam, cardboard, sculptamold, burlap, acrylic
paint, acrylic sheeting, glass jars, sourdough starters
These workshops, meals, and demonstrations are now a regular part of Nash’s work. The
artist’s recent solo show Lactobacillus Amongus about sourdough bread at Plug Projects in
Kansas City culminated in a bread bake and community potluck. These events stage the
gallery as a site for inquiry and knowledge sharing while inviting people from across
disciplines to come together to cultivate a new community of artists, fermentors, and others.
S.E. Nash
Propagated under peculiar technological parameters (1)
48 in. x 36 in. x 7.5 in.
Wood, burlap, sculptamold, acrylic paint, glass jars,
sourdough starters
In this work, worlds of culture collide. Cultures of microbes are actively fostered and
cultivated throughout the duration of Nash’s shows and new networks of exchange are
formed through the outreach and events that take place within the exhibition. Through
researching the history of fermentation and by interpreting microbial activity, Nash’s work
also explores human culture and social behavior. As a non-scientist researching
microbiology, there is a tendency for Nash to personify the micro-organisms, even referring
to them as “collaborators” in the work. For the artist, understanding the microbes becomes a
way to “unpack how we relate to the idea of life” and a meditation on aspects of human
behavior such as relationships, gender expression, symbiosis, reproduction, social networks,
and group dynamics. Nash’s fermentation-themed work and related events invite
participation into this cultural inquiry.
This essay is part of a series commissioned, in collaboration with Informality Blog, for the
exhibition YET, UNKNOWN at Paragraph Gallery (23 E 12th St, Kansas City, MO 64106)
open from July 27 through August 26, 2017. These pieces, co-edited by Melaney Mitchell
(Founder & Senior Editor of Informality Blog) and Lynnette Miranda (Curator-in-Residence at
Charlotte Street Foundation) focus on a shared goal of bringing the eyes of national writers
to the work of Kansas City-based artists.