2025, Tharros, Sardinia
40 x calzone breads, 40 x handmade miniature artists edition booklets
Last summer, I was invited to Sardinia with TETRARCHS to make an artwork connecting the local community to the archaeological work in Tharros. The artwork was part of a series called Breaking Bread - I work with a local baker to make a special batch of loaves with questions baked within. When customers take their bread home and share it with friends and family, they also share a conversation directed by these questions. Each loaf holds a unique set of questions.
I think of it as a gentle, dispersed performance where everyone is connected by this same activity, yet happening in different homes with different groupings of people. It's an orchestrated version of the timeless and commonplace tradition of sharing food and thoughts.
Each iteration of this project has had its own unexpected identity. I wrote this short story about The Sardinia version - it's a bit about bread, a bit about archaeologists and a lot about human connection and making things.
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Art + Archaeology + Pizzerias
It starts like the beginning of a bad joke; Three Archaeologists and an artist walk into a pizzeria…
A less optimistic person would say it wasn’t going very well. We have shuffled back outside where even on the street, we can hear the shouting. We look at each other – wondering what our chances of this working are. I feel hopeful – mainly because I am that optimistic person. But also, I recognise this type of verbal fireworks. If my dad were a Sardinian pizza maker, this is exactly how he would respond.
It’s June, we are in Oristano in Sardinia and looking for a local baker to work with. I am trying to make a community artwork - part of a series where small hand-made artists edition books featuring a unique set of questions about time and belonging are baked into a batch of special loaves of bread. They are uncovered when local residents break open these loaves, generating separate conversations about time across different households in the locality.
Earlier today we got a tip off that local partner, Nicoletta has a brother who works in a pizzeria. She says that he says the owners Eugenia and Giorgio might be up for getting involved. In fact, he has spoken to Eugenia and she’s given the thumbs up. We arrive, delighted, with test versions of the artists editions for the baker to try baking inside bread. The only problem is Eugenia has said yes, but she hasn’t yet mentioned it to her husband, Giorgio - and he’s the baker. Crucially he doesn’t want to do this – ‘it won’t work’. That’s when the shouting started.
Outside, Paola, our native speaker and archaeologist, is listening intently, something between pain and worry flickering across her face, whispering occasional diplomatic translations of the conversation.
After a few minutes, the shouting is punctuated by silences, followed by another burst of shouting, then a longer silence. Both hopeful and curious, we crane our necks to see what might be happening inside. Paola whispers with tangible relief, ‘he is doing it…. he says he knows it won’t work…. but…. he is trying’.
We wait.
Eugenia comes outside carrying a pizza box, inside sits a perfect calzone shaped bread with beautifully pleated edges - a fantastic idea which Giorgio - who remains in the kitchen - came up with.
Carrying the box back inside, I place it on the counter. ‘Let’s open it together and see’ I say.
We do - It works. As we tear the hot bread apart, we discover the perfectly preserved booklet inside. I look at Giorgio and he looks at me a giant smile across his face. Suddenly nothing is a problem - 40 breads with booklets in? When do you need them?
The project itself happened in the following week - 40 loaves of bread were delivered to local residents who’d taken part in research workshops as well as the front of house Staff at Tharros archaeological site – 40 conversations happened about time and belonging as people broke and shared the bread.
But rewind for a moment and go back to the pizzeria - freezeframe this moment; three open hearted archaeologists - faces entirely delighted; Eugenia looking entirely relieved; and then, there’s Giorgio and me standing grinning at one another - actually laughing with joy.
In each project, there is a moment where you can feel that something quiet yet important is happening. You can never foresee when or what it will be - it prefers to creep up and hit you over the head. This was That Important Moment. With no common language, we connected in sharing pleasure – pleasure in this funny collaboration, in having made something and made it well. Giorgio used his expertise for a different purpose and doing something unexpected in his day. For me, the sense that you can take creative practice everywhere and other people can (even when resistant at first) meet you there, bringing their own skills. This moment is why making art can sometimes feel entirely magical.
Nothing we made will live on. The bread was eaten, the small books, carefully embossed and constructed in paper and bound with silk will not last. Will I meet Eugenia and Giorgio again? Probably not but that’s Ok. One of the reasons I love working with archaeology is you simply can’t compete with the time-frames - the time it takes for people to experience connection and a sense of joy is long enough.
And so, this turned out not to be a joke but a short story about almost imperceptible quiet things and how they happen. And about hope and pleasure and aiming for things to be better than they need to be.
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Thank you to Giorgio; much kudos to Eugenia for saying the original Yes and her essential bit of marital persuasion; huge thanks to Holly Wright, Anna Simandiraki-Grimshaw, Paola Derudas and Alice Clough – Archaeologists in real life, pizza delivery guys in another.
Thank you to Sara Perry and Tetrarchs for supporting this project.
Image – X-ray of a Calzone with an artists edition baked inside, X-ray made at the Archaeology Department, University of York – Thank you James Taylor.
