Martin Jensen – Experience the transition – connecting through sourdough
November 8 @ 14:30 - 16:30
Martin‘s workshop aims to explore transformation—both material and metaphorical—through the ancient, embodied practice of sourdough bread baking. By engaging with the natural fermentation process, we examine how simple elements evolve into something life-sustaining when nurtured with care and time.
The session revolves around a central question: How can practices of bread making, rooted in nature and tradition, offer alternative ways of knowing that deepen our understanding of sustainability and mortality? I invite participants to consider the following: What natural ingredients are essential for sustaining life on Earth, and how do we recognize and care for them? Much like the process of fermentation, how can we hold and work through our perceptions in light of the reality of climate change?
Workshop host and participants will engage in Participatory Action Research by practicing the art of sourdough bread making. The workshop is structured to condense the typical 5–7-day fermentation cycle into a 2-hour session. Participants will interact with live cultures—based on the 15-year-old mother sourdough from Sweden—while we explore the invisible yet powerful fermentation agents: wild yeasts and bacteria present in flour and water.
This is relevant because these microorganisms and fermentation serve as metaphors for the often unseen yet crucial forces shaping life. As we engage our senses to judge when dough is ‘ready’, we transition from propositional knowledge (the chemistry of bread) to embodied understanding, posing the questions: What distinguishes change and transition from one becoming? How do we work towards the object of climate change?
