Natural Selection In Conversation

Installation view: Inedible Harvest, Natural Selection, San Mei Gallery, 2020.

A conversation between Natural Selection (James Binning and Farrokh Aman) and Livia Wang, Creative Director of San Mei Gallery’s sister space Van Gogh House London. Their exhibition Inedible Harvest runs until 8 August 2020.

Livia Wang: You are both architects but started Natural Selection as an independent project – can you tell us more about these origins?

Farrokh Aman: The project grew out of a very simple idea of making presents in a very short time span. I think we had 4 weeks or so. Obviously we failed. But in more direct answer to your question; we both pursue projects outside of a ‘practice’ of architecture. In a way this specific project lives within a series of collaborations - some looser and some more intensive…I see being engaged in a diverse set of creative activities central to how I would like to work. Therefore, it was quite natural to come up with an idea one evening and show up at the workshop the next morning to see where to start.

LW: What are the pieces made from? How do they look and feel, and what are the techniques you’re using to get there?

FA: The materiality has evolved since we began. The first slip we chose - pre-dyed parian - was a choice made with an eye on economy with regards to time. It's cheap, comes in many colours, self-glazes and so on. We were quite conscious of colour at the time and dyeing slip is a pain. We moved on to porcelain and terracotta - two purer things. Earthier and ethereal. That simplicity and preciousness unlocked something for me in terms of the haptic qualities of objects we make.

James Binning: We are learning as we go really. We aren’t ceramic artists, and I think we were mainly interested in the opportunity that making moulds and using slip casting to produce a lot of multiples gives us to try out a lot of different possibilities. It is really difficult to start work on something in a carefree and unselfconscious way, or not to feel too precious about a finished thing. Expectations can easily become a burden that takes a lot of the basic joy out of making things, so starting with something as simple as the selection of a vegetables and being able to make a lot of reproductions allowed us to work in a way that was much less encumbered by the expectation that any individual piece would have a distinct quality. I like the idea that it’s a ‘harvest’, the whole collection isn’t really reducible to a set of individual bits that should hold their own – a bit like Antony Gormley’s Field. These things aren’t really things that I expect to hold much interest as individual pieces to someone with any technical knowledge of ceramic production.

LW: You talk about how food has agency, that it plays ‘roles’ culturally. What is your relationship to food and why are you making work about it?

FA: I don’t think we’re making work about food per se. I very much think our work is about a process of artistic production. The use of vegetables and natural forms is more of a conduit. In that interplay, we have the opportunity to explore our relationship with things we eat, our customs and rituals. The role objects play within that.

I wholeheartedly welcome the interpretations of our work that may be different to ours though!

JB: Food and art have in common that they are both fundamental aspects of all human cultures, that at their best and most enjoyable they are simple, social ways of relating to the world and other people. Both of them have also been wrapped up in a lot of fuss and made to seem much more complicated and exclusive than they should be.  

LW: Any thoughts on how the Covid-19 restrictions are impacting our relationship with what we eat?

FA: I think people - at least ones I’ve been in touch with - have become more conscious of things we consume being finite. Or seasonal. In a place like London - and many others - one has got too used to everything being available at all times. 

LW: Similarly you speak of the ceramics you make as ‘creatures’ – this is very animated and theatrical. How do you see the ceramics in relation to the food they are cast from? Are they replicas? Negatives?

FA: For me - neither of those things. Although I think I am more interested in how others see them rather than how I do! We have discussed this many times with James - how we interact with the found objects, how we affect them - and we have boiled it down to making a few simple moves…a simple cut, a couple of markings - maybe for practical reasons..simple moves that give the cast object an otherness. When the cast looks and feels too much like the original, it somehow loses the magic…there’s nothing to interpret or project onto.

JB: Whenever you make something you get to know all the ingredients a bit more intimately. So when we started to look for which vegetables to buy, you’d pick up all the ones in the shop (no longer permitted….) and you give a different level of attention to all the variations, the strangeness and richness of things. It’s similar with the materials – the clays, their viscosity, colour. It’s very enjoyable when any process brings these kinds of ordinary details into focus so that you start to see and perceive a degree of extraordinary richness and variety of stuff you tended to look past before.

LW: Am I right in thinking that this is the first time you’re exhibiting the work? What is your approach? Has considering display challenged the work in any way?

It strikes me that exhibiting the pieces, allowing them to come in contact with people, will mean that the ‘food’ can fulfil the cultural/ritualistic purposes you mention. How do you see people interacting with the exhibition?

FA: Yes, first exhibition. The idea of displaying them has definitely pushed me towards finding scale. There is strength in numerousness when it comes to ceramics…but I also feel the need to explore bigger objects. It’s a simple pursuit but brings with it new technical challenges. I hope to see people picking up the object, holding on to them for a bit. Putting one down…picking another one up and so…trying to choose the right one! Ultimately though…I will just be standing back and seeing what happens; I am not too keen on creating an overtly controlled environment.JB: Well, it’s a bit tricky to know how anyone will interact with anything in the current climate. Probably touching is a bit less likely! But I think at a really basic level I’d like to be able to present the project in a way that communicates how simple it's been to make these things - they are almost embarrassingly crude in their technical production, quite sloppy, quite rough but as important in the process has been the way we’ve made them, it's been a social activity more than its been an artistic or creative endeavour – we developed the project as a way of making something we could share with others, but it's also been a great pretext for developing our friendship too. I’ve found making stuff more difficult in lockdown, because without that aspect just producing the work isn’t as fun, as eclectic, as interesting. I’d like a fairly simple idea that people came away thinking that they should sit down and use what is around them, as that is really what we started and it's been a very enjoyable and expansive process thinking through all the ways in which that has brought up other cultural and technical things to consider.

LW: The name ‘Natural Selection’ implies a process that is… evolutionary! What drives the decisions behind the work? What are you looking for in a vegetable?

The name was initially a working title…bit of a pun. You know - going to the shops and selecting the right vegetable. But then, it has assumed an important role in how we engage with our process and how that has developed. A strong intellectual reference point. Doing as little as possible to the thing we find - but then there is another step when a mould is made. Often we make a mould, cut it this way or that way…try it…learn something…discard it or keep or make another one that’s similar but better. The coming together of what is essentially an industrial process - mould making, casting - with unpredictability of things we find is sometimes frustrating and often very exciting. Aesthetics aside - there is also an important question about how practical our pieces are…I change my mind about that regularly.

LW: Do you share a studio? Are you experimenting in a kitchen? 

FA: Well right now my whole apartment is a studio! I’ve got experiments happening on various shelves. I have also turned our study into the casting room. To be completely honest - I think the current change in circumstances has actually helped our work.