Gifts from the Land: Harvesting Salt with Living Table (Dr Désirée Coral) | St Andrews Botanic Garden
Arts
Craft
Gifts from the Land is a series of workshops led by Scotland-based artists and craftspeople sharing with you their carefully developed knowledge on working with natural materials – inviting you to grow your creative practice and connect more deeply with the land around you. Join artist and researcher Dr. Désirée Coral for an afternoon at St Andrews Botanic Garden, where we will explore the practice of harvesting local sea salt which can be used for artistic and culinary purposes. Salt holds many meanings. It represents what remains after change, as water shifts state. It preserves, carries memory, and offers culinary pleasure. And yet, it can also poison us, as we get addicted to its taste, and salinity threatens our soil and fresh water. In that sense, salt reminds us of the importance of balance. Harvesting it allows us to engage in a dialogue with elemental forces, sun, water and time, unfolding in the processes of evaporation, accumulation and practices of sharing and creating. About the Artist Désirée Coral is an artist who received her Doctoral degree from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design at the University of Dundee in Scotland in 2024, and her MFA degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2018. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally with selected institutions including The Tignous Centre for the Arts, Forgan Arts Centre, and CCA Glasgow. Désirée's artistic exploration and research delves into the captivating realm of early global exchanges from the Americas to the rest of the world and vice versa, using a decolonial lens to understand the contemporary relationships between humans, inter-species, and the various notions of landscapes. The Living Table The Living Table is an ongoing project that invites people to share food and have conversations about food at Forgan Arts Centre in Newport-on-Tay, Scotland. Monthly events create opportunities for discussion, learning, cooking, eating, and growing. Led by the G.R.E.E.N. Artist in Residence Désirée Coral Guerra, Living Table is inspired by the life that grows around a table: from the life of insects that pollinate crops to the cultural and political life made manifest in recipes, traditions, and dinner table habits; from micro-organisms to human-migration. The project will play out over several months, and each month, we focus on one ingredient, for example, honey, edible flowers, or potatoes. Each month we will hear from guest artists, experts and prepare and share a meal together. For more information, see https://www.desireecoral.com/.
Information Source: St Andrews Botanic Garden | eventbrite