The Process: What happens when performance meets everyday activism?

Artist duo Cooking Sections blur the lines between art and activism with their installation, The Ministry of Sewers. 

The Ministry of Sewers is an exhibit by artist duo Cooking Sections for the Folkestone Triennial. Inspired by the 1976 appointment of Dennis Howell as Minister for Drought  – then Minister for Floods and Snows – it invites audiences to reimagine an alternative public service, using the voices of local communities to mobilise action against the scale of water pollution in the UK and reclaim the coastlines. From raw sewage spills to stream contamination and agrochemicals, The Ministry of Sewers amplifies the voices of swimmers, schoolchildren, farmers and scientists alike, all the while demanding change in shaping an alternative future of clean, swimmable seas all year.
 
In this episode of The Process, Cooking Sections’ Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe explore the blurry boundaries between fact and fiction in artmaking: how might art and activism intersect, and can performance be a tool for direct change? 

They hear from Paula Serafini, Senior Lecturer in Creative and Cultural Industries at Queen Mary, University of London, and Liv Pennington and Michele Shonfield, two of the ministers involved in the installation, on how art can empower people to speak out on issues that affect them. 

Credits
Contributors: Cooking Sections - Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe; Paula Serafini, Patricia Rolfe, Michele Shonfeld, and Liv Pennington 
Executive Producer: Eleanor Ritter-Scott 
Producer: Arlie Adlington 
Host: Laurent John
Theme Music: Ka Baird 
Sound Engineer: Mike Woolley

The Somerset House Podcast, shaped and sculpted by artists, explores original cultural ideas which connect listeners to the creative process. 

The Process is an artist-led podcast series, developed by Somerset House, which explores the new ideas, big questions and surprising tangents which emerge from the artistic process. 

Drawing on the creative community both on site at Somerset House and from the exhibition programme, each episode follows artists as they explore one idea they’re currently pursuing, to see where it ends up: from financial astrology to the black renaissance, quantum listening to geometry for aliens. 

Along the way, we hear from thinkers across disciplines, including artists such as Mark Leckey and Gazelle Twin on their fascination with ghosts and all things paranormal, and Hannah Diamond on the transformative potential of cute – and how these creative influences shape their practice in new and surprising ways.