Ellen Mueller

Eating & Making Together (Cheese Sculptures)

Eating-and-Making-Together_Hand-Reach

Photo Credit: Yi Wan

 

This participatory project involves eating Babybel cheeses (an internationally available product), crafting sculptures from the red wax coatings, and developing a collection of the sculptures, all while holding small group discussions about big ideas. The first iteration of the project took place at Künstlerhaus Lukas Artist Residency in Germany, May 2017. The second iteration of the project took place at UMass Dartmouth during February 2018. The third iteration too place as part of “Hands On,” a group exhibition at Pancake House in Minneapolis, MN during March 2019.

The project facilitates interesting discussion on a number of ideas, from items connected to cheese, eating, Germany, American politics, sculpting, to wax, memories, stereotypes, and contemplation of what the Americans would think of these German Sculptures, and vice versa, etc. Communication can sometimes be challenging because of language barriers and the volume of crowded spaces, but the cheese and sculptures act as a lovely silly bridge between us, regardless of the setting.