Sagra for Saint Veronica
Sagra for Saint Veronica / a feast for 78 on the occasion of Veronica, Veronica at HESSE FLATOW EAST organized by Emma Safir and Andrew Gardner.
A feast performance and culinary work to venerate and embellish the story of Veronica as patron saint of the image, photographers, linen weavers, and laundry workers through dishes, processes, and ingredients that index, (re)present, and leave their own traces. In the same way that wildly varied reproductions of Veronica’s veil become implicitly verified, forms of dishes shift and slip to accommodate lively and dynamic gastronomic variations. Combining seasonal products with variations on traditional recipes and methods, the meal constructed a site of convivial encounter as a companion to the exhibition, mirroring back its gestures of transfer, and (re)productive labor, and seepage.
The meal featured a materially and etymologically linked pasta dish of ‘mandilli de sea’ or silk handkerchiefs, an indexical salad of wild and cultivated herbs, greens, and blossoms invoking season and landscape, and a dessert refiguring bread and wine enlivened by the not so symbolic spectre of transubstantiation and harvest abundance in equal measure.
Collaborators and Producers:
Floral Terranes
Norwich Meadows Farm
Natoora
Locust Grove
She Wolf Bakery
Select images: Sagra for Saint Veronica Dinner, HESSE FLATOW East, Amagansett, NY, June 28, 2025. Courtesy of HESSE FLATOW, New York. Photo: Leia Jospé