Author Archives: Katy Beinart

We are travelling north up the Portuguese coast from Lisbon, but before we leave the city, we visit the Jeronimos Monastery with friend and colleague Ricardo. He tells us that the church used to hold a mass for all the fishermen before … Continue reading →

In preparation for my next research trip to Portugal, I’ve begun to map salt products in Brixton market. I found 8 shops/stalls selling a wide variety of salt fish products, although the Deli where Jose had talked about the saltfish … Continue reading →

I recently went to Gozo and Malta and searched out the many salt pans some of which are still in operation. In Gozo, the complex geometries of the hand-carved pans seem in harmony with the rocky cliffs and adapted to the … Continue reading →

I’ve been thinking some more about the metaphorical and material qualities of salt, and exploring these through journeys both far-flung and nearer to hand. This summer I went on a 26 day trip across Germany, Lithuania and Russia, accompanied by my … Continue reading →

In May, I attended a conference at the Bishopsgate Institute titled “Unofficial Histories” which set out to discuss “how society produces, presents and consumes history beyond official and elite versions of the past”. Then in June, I went on a … Continue reading →

I started the residency at August Art, Shoreditch High Street, last week and have been slowly making progress with the map of routes, based on the Brixton stories we collected last year. I based the map on lace making patterns, … Continue reading →

In early March, Rebecca and I went to Chelsea College of Art to take part in a conference called Contested Sites organised by TrAIN (Research centre for Transnational Art, Identity, Nation. We resurrected our market stall and asked conference participants … Continue reading →

I’ve been reading ‘One Place After Another’ by Miwon Kwon, which has led me to thinking about the nature of practices which engage with site. In the book, Kwon discusses the genealogy of site-specific art from the Serra era of … Continue reading →

At the Wellcome collection, an exhibition called ‘Charmed Life’ showcases the Victorian collector Edward Lovett’s 1400 amulets, with responses by artist Felicity Powell. Her delicate wax traces on mirror-backs are far more ethereal than the stumpy rough-hewn objects invested with … Continue reading →

Whilst getting the material together for the upgrade seminar I presented last week, I was searching online for  ‘Brixton’ and ‘melting pot’, and saw an advert for this on Gumtree. So I tracked it down and had a exchange in … Continue reading →