Contemporary Australian artist Andrew Rewald’s art practice investigates and engages with the ever evolving relationship between food, community, and the contemporary formation of rituals which evolve from these interactions. Expanding upon his investigation into the interconnectedness and relationship between food, community and ritual, Andrew is currently undertaking a residency with the NES Artists Residency program situated in a former fish processing plant in the village of Skagastrond, Iceland.

I have been keenly following his culinary and cultural forays through the blog he has created revolving around his residency, wherein his passion for food resonates throughout his documentation. Whether foraging for wild fennel, which he sautéed with garlic butter, or steeping common sorrel in a lemon butter sauce, (greenstuffs that are a beyond my ken), or communally participating in the cooking of various traditional Icelandic dishes, as a trained chef his love of food and its cultural structures are both passionately and amusingly described. Via the photographs posted on his blog, I have been intrigued by his imaging of such sumptuous peasant foods as Icelandic lamb and vegetable stew, Cod Roe Fritters served with Sorrel mayonnaise, the bulging pulchritude of Lamb haggis and Blood pudding, and, at its most extreme, Iceland’s traditional dish of putrefied Hákarl – rotten Greenland shark which has its very own distinctive aroma and flavour.

I hope to experience this last particular delicacy when I embark on my own residency in September of this year at SÍM Residency in Reykjavik, Iceland. Unlike Andrew’s conceptual engagement with food, community and ritual, my desires are simpler. I want to enjoy foods that I have neither experienced nor even imagined. As…