I am building an archive of bread

An invitation to observe, to smell, to wait. To connect with something very old: RYE SOURDOUGH STARTER

I like to observe how they change.

I like to watch them grow, their volume expanding.

Their smell is an important indicator — a way of getting to know them. Learn them.

I recognise when they’re happy by the fruity-sweet smell— a little acidic. When they are hungry, they smell ripe and vinegary.

In my jar, there are millions of them — maybe even more.

They share nutrients.

Together they defend their ecosystem. They fight off the “bad boys” – other unwanted bacteria.

They work together, cooperating, creating strength. They are building something together. They are truly a collective.

INGREDIENTS:

• 50 g rye flour (ideally from a nearby mill, stone-ground if possible)

• 50 ml warm water (about 28-35°C)
  

They are invisible. Humans have been using them for so long, consciously and unconsciously, that they often go unnoticed.

I call them THEY

(microorganisms)

They are quiet. Hidden. Like an invisible friend, a companion in this life.

I’m amazed by how united they are.

What could we humans learn from their example?

INSTRUCTIONS:

• DAY 1:

• Choose a jar or container that you like — something you want to return to.

• Mix 50 g of flour and 50 ml of warm water. Use your hands, if you can. Your skin holds good bacteria too, and touch is part of the process — sensory, intimate.

• Cover loosely with a cloth or lid that lets it breathe.

• Leave in a warm place (22–24°C) for 24 hours.

• Watch. Smell. Wait.

I don’t really know if they’re the same bacteria all the time — they probably change.

How old are they, really?

We humans are so small. We are only a tiny part of this big puzzle.

Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis, Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus brevis, Lactobacillus fermentum, Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus curvatus, Pediococcus acidilactici, Leuconostoc mesenteroides, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Candida milleri, Candida humilis, Kazachstania exigua, Pichia kudriavzevi1These are lactic acid bacteria and wild yeasts most commonly found in sourdough cultures across the globe, regardless of geographic location. Together, they form stable symbiotic ecosystems essential to natural fermentation

I wonder if they would like me?

Does sound affect their rhythm?

I don’t think they care.

They just want to eat.

I collaborate with them — not the other way around.

Or maybe… they collaborate with me?

Not sure if they’d be happy with that either.

We collaborate.

They help me bake my bread sculptures, and my everyday bread.

It’s a ritual for me.

A ritual of cooperation.

A ritual of the everyday.

There’s something magical and also very mundane about working with them.

Something transforms when we collaborate — when we make and bake bread together.

Time: 20:13

Time to feed them.

I take water — around 28–30°C, rye flour, and mix. Best to use my hands.

Then I leave them. Usually, they need a little time to consume the sugars.

I mostly keep them outside the fridge in a small reused plastic jar from some tiramisu I got one day.

They like warmth — that’s when they’re most active.

But it also means they need to be fed more often.

THEY are actually everywhere. In the air. In the flour. On our hands.

DAY 2:

• After 24 hours, you might see bubbles. Signs of life.

• Add another 50 g of rye flour and 50 ml of warm water, and mix with your hands.

• Cover again. Let it rest and live for another 24 hours.

• Observe how it changes — the scent, the surface, the air inside.

Throughout history, fermentation was an unknown process, a great mystery to people, something magical. Bread was a substance that existed between the human world and the divine, facilitating contact with beings from other realms.

It was a conduit for a cosmic perspective.

For me, even though I know the microbiological term and understand a bit about the process, it still feels like magic.

We’ve lost our relationship with bread, with food. Baking bread is no longer something important, no longer sacred like it used to be. My Slavic ancestors would bake bread once a week—a large loaf (sometimes almost 8kg), enough to feed the whole family for days.

The preparation itself was a special process, surrounded by many rules—what was allowed, what was forbidden—infused with magical rituals and incantations.

An important part—and object—of the bread-baking process in the past was the dzieża : a fairly large wooden vessel, wider at the bottom than at the top. It was the container in which bread dough was mixed, and on whose inner walls the sourdough bacteria lived. Usually, a small amount of dough was left behind for the next batch. The word dzieża comes from the Old Slavic “děža,” related to “děti” – to put or lay down – referring to placing the dough inside. Often passed down through generations, the dzieża held both practical and symbolic significance in rural households.

How the dzieża was treated was of great importance. Some were accustomed to standing in warm environments, others in the cold. Some didn’t tolerate noise—you couldn’t knock on them—and they had to be protected from drafts. It was a deeply personal object, rarely lent out to others. People believed that a stranger could cast a spell on it, and then the bread and sourdough would no longer rise.

I remember how my great-grandmother used to bake bread, usually for holidays and other special occasions. She lives in a small village in southern Poland, in the Małopolska region, and has a traditional bread oven in her kitchen. Baking bread was an important part of her life. It was typically Saturday morning when my grandfather brought over a large, round, still-warm loaf of bread. It was made from finely ground wheat flour, lightly dusted with flour on top, and the bottom part of the loaf was so baked in some spots that it almost formed a kind of ash. The breads were always sprinkled with nigella seeds.2Nigella seeds, also known as black cumin or “czarnuszka” in Polish, have been used in Eastern European and Middle Eastern bread-making for centuries for their aromatic, slightly bitter flavor. I always remember that taste, and I often add those seeds to my own bread.

I think everyone has some kind of memory connected to bread—a specific story, a formative moment. That’s what’s so beautiful about bread: everyone, in some way, can relate to it. It’s universal, fundamental. Bread is something so incredibly basic that it connects us all. It is a symbol of humanity.

DAY 3:

• More bubbles now. The smell: a little sour, maybe sweet.

• Feed again — 50 g flour, 50 ml warm water. Mix. Cover.

• Let it sit for another 24 hours. Observe.

Bread has been a crucial part of the human diet for over 10,000 years, shaping our existence and civilization. Through my practice, I ask, “How can we transfer these ancient magical powers of bread into the present day?"

I am building an archive of bread. This material takes on various forms and mediums.

Sometimes it’s simply bread—baked, fermented, shaped by hand. This is part of my everyday practice. My hands have become part of this archive — remembering gestures, folding dough, shaping forms. This embodied knowledge is carried not only through objects but through these repetitive, daily acts. During my research on bread, I often look for old recipes, including those from my Slavic ancestors. I’m particularly interested in the historical practice of adding various ingredients to increase the bread’s volume — in times when flour was scarce, fillers like birch bark, wild plants, or potatoes were used.

Other times, bread becomes a sculptural material and baking a method of research. I am fascinated by using bread as a medium in art and as a way of expression. Often, the sculptures take on a baked, dried, almost blackened form, preserved with large amounts of salt. Other times, they remain edible objects, open to consumption.

A significant part of this archive involves reviving forgotten traditions, such as the Slavic bread figurines called Nowe latka (“New Years”), traditionally baked in some regions of Poland. These small animal-shaped breads were traditionally baked around the New Year period and held symbolic and magical meaning — they were believed to bring life, protect against misfortune, and ensure abundance. Made for each household member and animal, they were shared and eaten as part of a ritual of coexistence and care. I see them as small deities. By recreating them in exhibitions, I aim to preserve and transform their power, breathing new life into this ritual.

The archive also includes my research folders filled with archival photos, screenshots, documents, and stories and fragments of memory related to bread, grain harvesting, unusual bread forms, bread sculptures, and bacteria.

Part of the archive is photographic documentation of my process. I often use analog photography because I love its materiality. I feel it complements this subject well. These photos often hover on the edge of time — it’s sometimes hard to tell whether they were taken recently or decades ago.

My inspiration also comes from contemporary social initiatives like New York’s non-profit bakery Hot Bread Kitchen, which preserves immigrant baking traditions while providing employment. I also admire projects like The Real Bread Campaign, which use baking to build community and support marginalized groups, including people with physical disabilities. I’ve started organizing participatory gatherings with artist Monika Raźny, where we celebrate shared meals, locality, and ancestral food traditions — with bread appearing in many different forms during these events. These gatherings act as a performative and participatory extension of my bread archive, creating a living, collective experience that invites interaction and community engagement.

DAY 4 (OPTIONAL):

• If it smells pleasantly sour and bubbles are strong, it’s ready.

• If not — feed again and give it one more day.

• Use it when it’s active, sour, bubbling — alive.

• A mature starter is usually ready after 5–7 days.

In 2024, I traveled to Turin, Italy where I visited the Museo Egizio, which holds a vast collection of artifacts from ancient Egypt. For a long time, I had wanted to see in person the breads — or rather, as I would call them, bread sculptures — that were found in the Tomb of Kha and Merit, dated to approximately 3,400 years ago. The Tomb of Kha and Merit (ca. 1400 BCE) is one of the best-preserved non-royal tombs from ancient Egypt. Among its many grave goods are well-preserved loaves of bread, still bearing their shapes after 3,400 years. Some fragments of my notes, written while I sat there, just looking at them them behind the glass:

I’m interested in calling these tables “funerary banquet tables” — it sounds exclusive. I wonder if the shapes of these breads meant something to them. Were they symbolic? Or just the baker showing off?

They remind me of totems. Something full of power. Cracked. Some broken into parts. 3,400 years! Wrapped in papyrus leaves. Unevenly round. Imperfect. Eaten by worms. There’s this tied animal — a goat maybe? Distorted by time. You can really see the passing of time in them. So many have holes, craters. Some with strange cuts. Holes. I’m curious how they placed the bread on the table. There’s a small sign close to them that says: “The couple will eat for eternity, day after day.”

In a time of environmental and social challenges—including food imports and the carbon emissions associated with them—I believe in the power of local sourcing, fermentation, and the daily act of bread-making as a practice of transformation, survival, and hope.

Bread connects communities. Bread is everywhere, and we are social creatures with a need for belonging.

TO KEEP IT ALIVE:

• Feed it every 1–2 days with equal parts rye flour and warm water.

• Before each feeding, discard about half of the starter — this keeps the balance right and prevents it from growing endlessly. But don’t throw it away. You can keep the discarded part in the fridge and use it creatively: in cakes, pancakes, knekkebrød, waffles, or other baked goods. It's still full of life, flavor, and possibility.

I am interested in local ancient varieties of grains, especially those from my surroundings. I am interested in their histories. I often reach for them. Everything begins with the earth.

There is an old, northern variety of rye called Svedjerug.3The word svedjerug comes from the Swedish verb svedja, meaning “to burn”. It refers to a traditional method of farming known as slash-and-burn cultivation, where forests were burned and then sown with rye. By burning the vegetation, ash was produced which was rich in minerals. This created an exceptionally fertile layer of soil, ideal for rye.
This grain is resistant to the harsh northern climate, cold, and poor soil. It grows up to 2 meters tall. Full of nutrient-rich content. Its yields are much more modest than those of modern grains. It’s also more sustainable.4Growing local varieties often requires fewer chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Its natural resistance to harsh northern climates and poor soils means it can grow well without intensive farming practices, which reduces environmental impact. Svedjerug often support biodiversity and soil health better than high-yield modern varieties.

It is speculated that wild Emmer wheat (T. t. subsp. dicoccoides)5Wild emmer wheat is believed to be one of the first domesticated cereals, originating in the Fertile Crescent and forming the genetic basis for many modern wheat species. 
is the mother of all grains. It originates from the Fertile Crescent— a historically rich region in the Middle East, often considered the cradle of agriculture and early civilization. Stretching from the eastern Mediterranean through Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf, it is where many of the earliest domesticated grains first appeared, including wild emmer.

Wild emmer was a staple food of our ancestors long before we settled into permanent communities. This hardy grain grows wild in rocky, mountainous regions of the Fertile Crescent, thriving in challenging conditions where few other crops could survive. I feel a great power and weight of history contained in this grain. It connects us to the earliest gestures of sowing and harvesting, to the first breads ever baked. For me, the taste and smell of flour made from domesticated emmer (Triticum turgidum subsp. dicoccum), which descends from wild emmer transports me back to those ancient times. In its scent and distinctive nutty taste, I can sense the depth, the age, and the strength of this connection.

I often find myself imagining how people first discovered this grain growing wild on the rocky slopes of ancient mountains — a moment of encounter that changed everything. Wild emmer also forms the genetic basis for many modern wheat species.

Wild emmer (and the grains carrying its genetic legacy) truly formed the foundation of the early agricultural revolution. Thanks to these resilient grains, people began cultivating on a larger scale. With this shift came new gestures — grinding grain into flour, storing harvests for the future, and baking the first breads. These simple yet powerful actions grounded daily life and helped early communities to settle, grow roots, and open the path to new ways of living and thriving.

• Keep it somewhere warm. Somewhere calm. Somewhere it can breathe.

• If you’re not baking every day, you can keep your microorganisms in the fridge. There, they go into hibernation and can rest for up to two weeks without being fed. Alternatively, you can keep them outside at room temperature. They will stay more active and continue to ferment. This way, you can meet the bacteria more regularly — collaborate with them, feed them, and bake together.