The Oven action of the Wrocław collective Food Think Tank is presenting the process of rising and baking pastry made with Ukrainian sourdough. Taken out of an oven bubbling with fire, the breads, rolls, scones, croissants and cakes that appear on the tables made at MiserArt by people in crisis of homelessness, accompany the gestures of welcoming and of getting to know each other by the WRO Biennale participants.

In Karina Marusinska and Marta Sniady’s installation Daily Bread, the crumbs collected from the floor on the tabletop are part of an installation that gives visibility and audibility to inconspicuous elements of reality – leftovers, bread particles – the carelessly discarded when one is satiated, and those that must suffice for one to survive. Absence, scarcity, loss are the ‘daily bread’ of war. Crumbs as the embodiment of leftovers, remnants of decay, ruin. But also the ennoblement of things/issues/stories that are small, seemingly insignificant, marginalised. Next to the oven, a work by Gosia Rojek entitled Fields, presenting paintings created using the author’s original technique employing elements of the earth.

The open space of the kitchen surrounding the bread oven, the vestibule and the entrance filled with the bustle of the bakers and the presence of the spectators who are sharing and snacking; the smell of baking bread, the sound of the fire, the clustered clouds of flour, the hot bread scalding the hands as it is broken and shared, the ever-present crumbs, none of which should be wasted – this is the multisensory landscape of the event. Each participant here is both a guest and a host.

The premise of the project launching the WRO 2023 Fungible Content Biennale is also to draw a line between Miser Art – a place born out of the need to shape a community that opposes exclusion – and the nearby Living Culture Bakery – a place for artistic activities, created from a converted former military bakery. Sketching out a multidimensional inclusive space for encounters, values of attitudes developing across fields, based on working together, creating and consuming in a sustainable manner.

Food Think Tank is a collective founded in 2013, that has gained foundation status since 2015. It is a group of professionals from many sectors, cooperating on educational projects with culinary and art at their centre. Each member focuses on a specific issue, adopting the optics of his or her own field or specialisation, thereby inspiring others to find new solutions. FTT also carries out numerous social projects, urban actions and culinary interventions. Key interdisciplinary projects: Between Meadow and Forest (2013), Orchard and Fire (2014), Earth and Water (2014-2015), Forest – Installation (2015), Root – Case Study (2016-2017), Migrant Food Language (2018-2019).

Karina Marusinska was born in Piotrkow Trybunalski. She lives and works in Wrocław, where she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts – Design, Ceramics Design (2003-2008). She also studied under scholarship programmes at the Spanish University of the Basque Country in Bilbao (2007) and the French Institute of Ceramics in Guebwiller (2008). She has completed postgraduate studies in Design Management conducted by the Institute of Industrial Design and the College of World Economy at the Warsaw School of Economics (2009-2010) and the international postgraduate course “Kaolin” in art and design in contemporary ceramics at ENSA Limoges in France and China (2013-2014). She works at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław as an assistant professor in the Contextual Ceramics Studio. She is an interdisciplinary artist, an academic teacher with a PhD, and a socio-cultural animator. She co-founded the design group Wzorowo (2008-2014). She is a member of the Food Think Tank collective (since 2014) and the performance group Łuhuu! (since 2005). She is a multiple scholarship holder (including the Minister of Science and Higher Education, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, the Marshal of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship, the Marshal of the Łódzkie Voivodeship, the President of Wrocław), winner of awards (including the “Talent of the Three” of Polish Radio, the “Worth” of Gazeta Wyborcza, the “Make me!” Łódź Design, “Survival 14” Art Review), a resident (France, China, Slovakia, Austria, United Kingdom), a participant of numerous national and international exhibitions, festivals, symposia, open-air workshops. Her works can be found in the collections of the Krehky Gallery in Prague, the National Museum in Warsaw, the National Museum in Kraków, the National Museum in Wrocław, the Regional Museum in Stalowa Wola.