Bread – an everyday food item common to many cultures throughout history – is used by Grindrod to examine notions of value and sustenance in both the secular and spiritual realms.

‘Crumbled, shop-bought bread is reduced to its constituent elements. The subsequent addition of water results in a clay-like substance. To this shredded or chewed printed papers may also be added’.

Used to constitute various forms, including the ‘original’ slices of bread, bread-as-material explores the ‘infra-thin’, here defined as the close relation between one thing and another.

Motifs from contemporary life, as well as from Egyptian and Christian regeneration myths, are referenced. The bread forms are exhibited in relation to a collection of found hand-made signs, bought at traffic intersections from supplicants asking for ‘bread’.

Photographer: Mario Todeschini