You Say Jelly, I Say Agar

Chasing Oneders
2010 Feb, PhotoSpace Shadwell (London, UK)


You Say Jelly, I Say Agar
Assortment of agar‐agar jelly casts on lightbox plinth, 2010

Jelly moulds were common exhibits in the batteries de cuisine of stately homes. But extracting gelatin from animal bones requires laborious preparation, and thus gelatin-based desserts could only be savoured by the affluent class until the mid-nineteenth century, at least in the European milieu. Instead of using gelatin from animal collagen, I grew up having inexpensive agar-agar jelly desserts made from red algae for festive and social occasions. This work addresses the disconnect between the de rigueur decorative Victorian dessert and my childhood nostalgia and festivities through a “foreign” lens, featuring a series of agar-agar jelly sculptures made from everyday plastic food packaging.