Daily Bread: a contemporary art exhibition at The Mill

Daily Bread, an exhibition of work by Margerita Pulè and Letta Shtohryn will be on show at The Mill in Birkirkara until 14 August.

Both artists use an interdisciplinary approach, working in digital media, installation, sculpture and performance. The work in Daily Bread takes its lead from systems of clientelism and corruption within societies. It makes reference to bread and salt as indispensable parts of life, but also refers to the double-meaning of dough in terms of money and the value of salt in history.

Both artists will carry out performative work on the evenings of Friday, 9 and Wednesday, 14 August.

Shtohryn’s work is a video trail starting with bread, and leading to salt, ritual and politics. Through video, she creates semiconnected meanings and associations, sprouting to various directions, such as bread and salt as catalysts of revolutions and bread as a tool for political rituals. Her trail starts with the daily bread of internet giants – routinely mined data creates markers of our mental state, political preferences and position in society to distribute ads to us, simplifying our complex lives by categorisation. Can the algorithm know whether a politician is corrupt by offering frequent flyer discounts to Panama?

Pulè’s work refers to the secrecy which encircles corruption, the implicit class systems that exist within society and how bribery, behaviours and prejudices can influence every day transactions. Her installation asks audiences to participate, to place a (secret) value on the price of their bread and possibly allow themselves to be valued in the process. The work plays on bread’s centrality in human civilisation; a lack of it can lead to revolution, but a surplus can serve to pacify populations.

Both artists graduated with a Masters in Fine Arts in Digital Arts from the University of Malta in 2016 and have been working in Malta for the past five years.

The exhibition is produced by Unfinished Art Space and What Do We Do Now? with the Gabriel Caruana Foundation.