Breaking Bread - Toumba

Toumba Serron, Greece, 2025 - 40 loaves of bread & 40 numbered artists editions

At the same time as ALL OF IT HAPPENED AND SOME OF IT’S TRUE., I also worked on a sister project connecting the local community with the excavation, the archaeologists and their work and the embroidery.

Breaking Bread is part of an ongoing series of work. In Toumba, we worked with the Local Bakers, Χρήστο Τούνα στην Τούμπα Σερρών to create 40 special loaves of bread, sold on the middle Saturday of the excavation season. Baked inside each loaf was a small artists edition – a handmade and hand-bound booklet with information about the excavation and the artworks as well as 6 questions. Each loaf had a different set of questions – no two were the same – about time and being human. These were selected and curated from the list of questions I had asked each archaeologist during research for the embroidery.

For 1 euro 50, local residents could purchase one of these loaves of bread and be part of a gentle, connective art event. Each loaf was broken open amongst friends and families, across different dining tables throughout the village that day. Although we can never know the details of what was said, we do know that many residents of Toumba Serron were having conversations about humanity and perceptions of time, asking each other as they shared food, questions they may never have asked before.

Rewind back to that morning, when the bakery opened. A small team of archaeologists and I sat across the street, sipping coffees, eating baked goods and generally being present. As customers left the bakery they would point to their bread and wave to us. Often, our lack of shared language meant we could share few words, but as we all waved back enthusiastically, we could feel the small threads of connection weaving between us.