The Performance 

Katy is going to use a very special “Breadmaking Suitcase” for her performance 'Starter Culture'. She will start by creating the culture for the bread, then actually bake it and – together with salt – offer it to the “guests”.

The starter culture is both a metaphor for the transference and transformation of culture as migration occurs, and a physical substance used by the artists to create a ritual of crossing thresholds. Using grapes from home, the culture is a natural yeast which can be used and re-used, continually changing but also staying intact, retaining some element of its original self. The culture is transported in the bread-making suitcase which also contains tools and equipment to make bread in any place, like the idea of a migrant trying to take everything necessary to recreate home as they travel.

At border crossings, and thresholds, the artists use the bread and salt to re-create the ritual of Khlebosolny,  an Eastern European Jewish ritual observed at the crossing of a threshold to a new home, which consists of dipping bread in salt and eating it. The bread represents and blessing and the salt represents the preservation of the blessing