Red Herring
The Scent of and its Possibilities Huntly, Scotland, summer 2010 ‘The term Red Herring is used to describe something that provides a false or misleading clue, often in a detective story. In the 18th and 19th centuries herring was one of the most widely caught fish in the seas around Britain. In those pre-refrigerated days it would be preserved by salting and smoking. This smoking process would turn the herring a deep brownish red colour. Heavily smoked herring would also have a particularly strong and pungent smell. For the origins of the phrase we turn to hunting in the early 1800s and hunt saboteurs. It’s true: there must have been an early version of the modern fox lover as on hunt days the strong-smelling fish would be dragged along the hunt route and away from the foxes. This confused the hounds, which followed the scent of the “red herring” rather than that of the fox. So effective was this tactic that the phrase passed into common English usage.’ From: Albert Jack, Red Herring and White Elephants – The Origins of the Phrases We Use Every Day
Red Herring Diary Local vs. Global Red Herring shed light on the obscurity around carbon emission counting in relation to food production and consumption. Despite it being an area of everyday life, and burning a lot of carbon emissions, the word ‘food’ is barely written into either the British, nor French, local Agenda 21. Red Herring was a process to explore how Huntly exists in relation to carbon emission activity in the town’s food production and consumption. Food-mileage and carbon emission labelling attach an ethical question of environmental concern to the daily decisions we make as consumers. In the necessary process of lowering carbon emissions on a global scale, the decision processes of the individual and the local community must be critically examined. The knock-on effect of what we eat and how it reaches us is something to be considered as producing both positive and negative repercussions. Huntly, the town Deveron Arts is operating from, is no exception to this. While the town is in the rural heartland of the Aberdeenshire farmland, today there is no green grocer in the town, much of the lamb in its supermarkets comes from New Zealand, while its own life stock is exported to France, the homeland of Stéfanie Bourne. The Process Stéfanie’s practice emphasises the importance of processes in research. Existing as subtle interventions in the patterns of our daily routines, her works gently yet effectively provoke critical reflection, while also becoming embedded in the mechanisms of daily life. Her activities exist in the public domain, which she transforms into an arena for discussion and analysis, with little, if any, division between art, life and participation. Red Herring looked at the issue of our food mileage through the eye of Huntly’s people over a three months period by: • turning the Empty Shop residency studio into a grocery for bartering vegetables; if you had too many carrots, you might swap them for some needed tatties. • organising discussions about growing and eating local produce, such as Fair Trade with Huntly local shops and a seed bomb workshop. • organising a ‘Pampered Chef’ cooking series using local vegetables, a contradiction to the trade accustomed to globalized ingredients. These different stages facilitated a participatory understanding of the term ‘carbon footprint’ directly in relation to the towns-folk of Huntly. Red Herring developed five food related phases: production, distribution, consumption, administration and finally, destruction. These stages are encapsulated into a series of images (GHG emission, Zero Carbon Licence, The King of the GHG Kingdom, International Networking, Black Gold). While local and environmental authorities put out literature like the local Agenda 21, Red Herring showed that active and community-based participation has a greater effect on reducing carbon emissions in our everyday activities such as food consumption. Furthermore, the simple action of composting has a direct
impact on carbon emission rata: lowering the amount and weight of waste needing transport, encouraging home grown fruit and vegetables, and reducing transport and packaging in food consumption. Red Herring focused on composting in Huntly, with many manures still existing one year on. Composted outcomes Red Herring Diary, June 2010: How now do we preserve the scent of Red Herring? Can the process continue? Shall we produce a folded book allowing us to gather kitchen waste for the compost bin to be used further in growing local fruits and vegetables? Or will it simply be an artistic reflective reading of the Agenda 21? I will if you will, September 2010: The combined gathering of all stages (production, distribution, consumption and waste recycling) I will if you will, proposed rotted compost, produced and distributed by the Aberdeenshire food waste recycling department, into the shapes of kitchen tins, to be placed on shelves as recycled food storage solutions, and maybe eventually put back into a vegetable garden. The work was on show at the Soil exhibition at the Hanna Maclure Gallery in Dundee. Black Gold, October 2010: The boot compartments of several brand new FORD cars, which have a significant carbon emission and cash value attached, were filled with compost made from the Aberdeenshire food waste recycling department. Red Herring invited people to come to the Farmer’s Market in the town square to take the compost away in any re-usable container, making people come to the car rather than have the car drive around to each house. Art is compost is Art: Art is compost. It always has been. This fact has been evaded by the act of repetition. The repetition of images. The repetition of art. First in ritual. Now in white spaces. That there is difference in repetition is the art of art. Jonathan Baxter. Claudia Zeiske StÊfanie Bourne