2019 | site-specific installation, performance

​Daily Bread is a participatory-performative work, playing on models and norms of corruption, sleaze, and bribery, and on unspoken systems of clientelism and patronage. The artist acts as an official, carefully and systematically man aging ‘offers’ for bread. The artist rates any offers received, and awards bread products accordingly. These range from stale bread, to everyday hobż biż-żejt, all the way up to luxury baked goods.

The bread awarded depends not only on the offer made, but also on the social standing of the client; white men, aged 30 – 50, rate higher, for example, than young women. Third-country nationals, unfortunately for them, are rated quite low on the scale of social standing. Note is taken of the offers made, and the bread awarded; the assessment made by the artist also reflects how perceptions are formed, how societies rate an individual’s status, and how bribery and behaviours can affect transactions.

The secrecy embedded within the project also reflects unspoken rules, whether of allowed and acknowledged behaviour, or of more secretive, clandestine dealings.

Design & build in collaboration with Tom Van Malderen