Serving Gluttony

Serving Gluttony

Serving Gluttony

An Essay for Unit Gallery, London, 2024

An essay to accompany a group exhibition exploring the theme of gluttony in our contemporary food, social and political lives. 

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Author: Catherine Flood 
Curator: Anna Lazaridou

Gluttony is as rich and slippery an idea as its subject matter. It can be used to bring some of the worst kinds of human excess into focus. But also to remind us of the multiple and vital ways that food brings us joy. 

Taking the Industrial Biscuit

Taking the Industrial Biscuit

Taking the Industrial Biscuit

An essay in London’s Kitchen, Industry, Culture and Space in Park Royal, 2021

This book was commissioned as part of the London’s Kitchen project, a series of six limited edition products connected to and inspired by Park Royal, its character, its links and its changing industrial heritage. Taking the McVitie’s biscuit factory as a starting point, my contribution considers the biscuit’s intimate relationship to industrial work.

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Author: Catherine Flood 
Editor: Åbäke
Editor: May Rosenthal Sloan
Commissioner: Panel Glasgow

A cup of tea and a biscuit became part of an everyday psychological pattern of work and reward and the industrial tea-break was enshrined in British law, the smallest denomination amongst the sanctioned, hard-won, breaks that constitute ‘time-off’ in industrial society.

Pandemic Objects: The Underground

Pandemic Objects: The Underground

Pandemic Objects:

The Underground

Part of a blog that compiles and reflects on objects that have taken on new meaning and purpose during the coronavirus outbreak, V&A, 2020

As tube stations emptied during the coronavirus pandemic, this piece reflected on the past present and future of one of the great modernist design projects of the twentieth century: the London Underground.

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Author: Catherine Flood 
Editor: Brendan Cormier

Images copyright V&A

Rather than reminiscing on the passive pleasures and frustrations of commuting, maybe it’s time to consider how we might design and inhabit the city in ways that are healthier in every sense.

Exposition Indisciplinée

Exposition Indisciplinée

Exposition Indisciplinée

An essay in Techniques & Culture, 74, 2020

An essay for an edition of Techniques & Culture about curating Disobedient Objects at the V&A. It reflects on the institutional critique, contradictions and strategies involved in displaying social movement objects within museums. 

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Author: Catherine Flood 
Editor: Matthieu Duperrex
Editor: Mikaëla Le Meur

My Charming Ancestor

My Charming Ancestor

My Charming Ancestor:

Lost Spells & Sick Cattle

An essay for the Recipe Project: Food, Magic, Art, Science, and Medicine, 2022

This is a short piece I wrote for The Recipe Project on discovering a manuscript of remedies for treating cattle written in 1768 by my 6X great grandfather. The cures draw on an impressive range of herbs and toxic chemicals, but also on magic in the form of two verbal charms. I became curious about what in meant to be a charmer and what such documents might reveal about the human-animal relations of the past. 

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Author: Catherine Flood 
Editor: Josh Schlachet
Image (left) reproduced with permission of West Sussex Record Office. Image (right) courtesy of the Wellcome Collection.

The performance of a charm could involve sounds, substances, and touch, becoming an embodied experience for both charmer and non-human charmee.