Refrigerator Illusion

Rice Brewing Sisters Club

South Korea

〈Social Fermentation Archive〉,

Mixed media, Mixed materials, Dimensions variable

The Social Fermentation Archive explores “social fermentation” as an archival method and practice by documenting the multinodal networks created between microorganisms, humans, more-than-humans, and the natural and built environment of East and Southeast Asia. Fermentation is known to be a metabolic process that changes the chemical properties of the organic substrates throughout the passage of time. The Social Fermentation Archive, however, considers fermentation not only to be a biochemical process but also an open-ended metaphor that expands into the realms of the social, relational, and sensorial.
The archive is a compilation of the Rice Brewing Sisters Club (RBSC)’s travel records in six countries throughout Asia: South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, and Taiwan. Spanning various mediums, the archive showcases the multiple voices and practices that comprise the “social fermentation” of each region. These include the local fermentation recipes, microbial encounters of yeast and enzyme, intercultural conversations and actions, decolonial histories, geographical and geological observations, rituals and belief systems, all of which are conveyed in the manifold forms of texts, images, moving images, objects, and mapping experiments. It is through this attention to the polyphony of social fermentation—both within the archive and among the travelled sites—through which the potent nodes of connection across national borders come to life.