Tasha Marks wants you to cast your mind back to when you were at school, calculator in hand. Can you see it in your mind’s eye? Can you recall someone typing ‘5318008’ before turning it upside down? Good. This is the title of Marks’ new sculpture in the Being Human exhibition at the Wellcome Collection.
Unlike most objects in this exhibition space, this is one you can touch. And, more importantly, smell. Inhale. Do you remember? Can you remember? The sculpture smells like breast milk, hence the inverted ‘BOOBIES’ title.
The sculpture smells like breast milk, hence the inverted BOOBIES title
Tasha’s work at the Wellcome Collection has been well received, given people’s curious fascination with breast milk – a substance many of us have consumed as babies but perversely find slightly squeamish as adults.
Marks is not an artist by trade, she is in fact a food historian. This job title might lead people to conjure up an image of an old lady researching a recipe for ye olde mutton pye. Marks, however, is a 31-year old Londoner, with a penchant for poisonous 19th Century confectionery, who shares tales of the Victorian trend for adding lead oxide to sweets to make them more colourful, albeit a tad lethal.
Marks has a penchant for poisonous 19th Century confectionery
In 2011, she founded AVM Curiosities (Animal Vegetable Mineral), “Food was the perfect avenue,” explains Marks, “it is very democratic and breaks down boundaries that fine arts people can be intimidated by”. AVM is about bridging the gaps between art and food – there’s a lineage with food history where in the 15th Century confectioners were treated as artists.
Previous projects have included making sweets from ambergris (a rock-like substance made of squid beaks vomited by sperm whales yet prized by perfumers for its smell) and making chocolate replicas of Leonardo’s Last Supper that were infused with gold, frankincense and myrrh. “I wanted to look at a religious icon in a way that is both trivial and cerebral in equal measure,” she laughs.
Previous projects have included making chocolate replicas of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper
She sees her work as a way of bringing people together by combining the senses and releasing memories: “I was drawn to confectionary. It has lots of stories and history. There’s a nostalgic element and the familiarity. We all have a sweet tooth, so you’re starting on a platform people enjoy and can engage with.”
In 2014, she created This Sea of Sugar Knows No Shore – a one-metre-squared Turkish carpet made from sugar for the Istanbul Design Biennial. Marks explains the creation: “I drew the designs when I was out there and got a Turkish craftsman to carve them into wood, which I then used to make imprints in the sugar. It was about using different techniques – old and new ways of thinking.”
In 2014 she created a one-metre-squared Turkish carpet made from sugar for the Istanbul Design Biennial
In recent years, Marks’ work has moved into some of London’s biggest museums and galleries. As part of the Alexander McQueen Friday Late at the V&A, Marks wanted to channel the darkness of McQueen’s designs and created edible black bubbles. “The interactive installation took a murky black liquid, and transformed it into beautiful orbs of light. The tension between beauty and the grotesque was explored as the black bubbles floated freely around the space only to be ravenously consumed by the viewer.”
She has also created a Georgian ice cream parlour at Kensington Palace, a Day of the Dead edible sculpture at the British Museum, tasting menus at the National Gallery, a ‘Lickable Leighton’ experience at Leighton House – where she matched each dish with a different room or painting – and a Victorian afternoon tea at the V&A which is an ongoing experience on Fridays at the museum.
Marks wanted to channel the darkness of Alexander McQueen’s designs and created edible black bubbles
Coming up is an installation at Kensington Palace called The Scented Sovereign that will be on display as part of its upcoming series of Lates. The figurative display will be infused with three fragrances inspired by first-hand experiences gathered from Queen Victoria’s own journals.
While still working with food, she is now keen to involve smell in her work. She explains “In recent years my shift from taste to scent as my primary artistic medium has made these longer running displays possible, and I feel I’ve only just scratched the surface with where this strand of my practice might take me. The future for AVM Curiosities will certainly be a fragrant one…”
