I line up jars coloured by salted vegetables against the wall of our new workshop. I photograph these pictures as still lifes. Yet this nature is not dead. It is not even silent. From time to time, a “psss” or a “tististis” can be heard — air escaping from jars in full fermentation.
A microbial world of bacteria is celebrating. When the conditions are right, its inhabitants eat the sugars in the vegetables and transform them into lactic acid. My task is to make sure those conditions are met. I watch over the paths of these stars: salt, sugar, oxygen and temperature.
Like a conductor, I direct the ensemble, but I am not all-powerful. Once the jar is closed, the alchemical mystery has its own part to play in the transformation.
Before this wall of living colours, a quiet joy fills me and gives me energy. I am carried away by the simple beauty of these vegetables behind glass. I laugh at my own enthusiasm. This work reminds me that I am simply human, feet on the ground and head in the clouds.
– M