WHAT’S A SANDWICH WHEN THE FILLING IS BREAD?

In this session we discussed Hannah O’Flynn’s ongoing research on the colonial history of the baguette. This research stems from an ongoing collaborative research on the politics of food with Vita Buivid, developed from an initial performance with Vita Buivid, Francisco Mojica and Giorgos Gripeos. 

In this session we first traced back into the relation of wheat importation by the Spanish to the colonised Americas and the violent construction of race by the colonisers. We later looked into the development of the baguette in relation to the French Revolution and the development of a new understanding of labour. We finally discussed the apparition and popularisation of the baguette and the baguette sandwich across several of the French colonies, and their significance in relation to new forms of labour, mobility and “life styles”.

Presenting: Hannah O’Flynn

Commenting: Amit Rai, Litchi Ly Friedrich, Raúl Silva